Made In Japan Meridian MS

I remember hearing this for the first time at age 10and thinking it was pretty cool. This was before I musicallymatured into the snob I am today, of course, so revisiting DeepPurple seemed a logical choice after so much time.

A while back, I criticized a gushing press releaseabout a new Deep Purple album. The release stated that the band wasone of the most important ever in defining the rock and metal artform. But after listening to Made In Japan, that statementmakes a little more sense. Often, we look to the obvious metalfigures -- Zeppelin, Sabbath, Metallica -- as the ones who inspiredthe genre, leaving out Deep Purple, Blue Cheer, and even IronButterfly, in their own way, as luminaries.

Made In Japan offers all the power that seemedbottled up on the band's previous three albums. In this setting,they can be as loud and overblown as they want, and they succeed onboth fronts (the Guinness Book of World Records once listedthem as the loudest band on the planet). Seven songs spread overtwo albums, but with the exception of two, they entertain all theway through.

"Highway Star" is a logical opener, and remainssimilar to the studio version, although Richie Blackmore's guitarsounds faster and more urgent, and the rhythm section reallycarries the song (any nominations for Ian Paice as a top 10 drummerof all time?) "Smoke On The Water" is extended slightly, with alonger introduction and some organ theatrics to close, but itremains fundamentally the same.