Quote:
Originally Posted by Unknown Soldier
Whenever I think of really heavy early 70`s albums, I think Deep Purple and "In Rock" I think both Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin etc came nowhere close to this for heaviness.
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If you get hold of one of the really early UK presses of II (although I've read that some German and even some Canadian presses are better), you may change your mind on Led Zep.
It's an astonishingly heavy album - but it's a wierd, delicate sort of heaviness, if that makes sense. Under the right conditions - decent source + decent playback system - it's the heaviest album ever produced.
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, likewise, has some astonishingly heavy moments - but the albums that preceed it, while undoubtedly massively influential on post NWoBHM bands, lack that certain something in comparision.
And I almost agree with "In Rock" - it really is an incredibly heavy album, with many metal elements in place. I concur that Lord adds a special something to the heavy sound - the Hammond B3 is capable of a really snarly growl which gives me goosebumps, and Lord has a way of hitting the "heavy spot", especially on "Speed King". Gillan's vocals are amazing too - as, of course, are Blackmore's solos, which are the furthest away from pentatonic bluff of all the "big 3".
Somehow, though, Purple's music still lacks the "weight" of "Immigrant Song" or "Whole Lotta Love".
Could be my system, I suppose - I own first pressings of all Sabbath's albums, Zep II, III and IV (try finding a first press of I for less than £300 these days!), and "In Rock", and I'm using these for comparison, not some artificially tweaked CD.
The earliest UK press of Zep II is such a bad boy that it made the needle jump on my old system, and I sold it, thinking it was scratched. So many have done the same before me... it's not scratched, it's simply that the first release is famous for being mastered too loud for "cheap" systems.
It's a close thing - and much of it is down to production / mastering / end user taste, but I think Zep win the heaviness war - even though I think they're the least metal of the 3.
Ignoring production, I think that both Jeronimo and Buffalo had far heavier sounds than any of them, were much closer to metal - and they had that stomp/swagger thing going on at a raw level
