Jeff Beck

The second album from the Jeff Beck Group shows why Beck was one of the holy trinity of Brit guitarists along with Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page. Never heralded for his speed or flashy technique, he was recognized for musical imagination and sinewy, lyrical tones, which help turn the two Presley covers here into flights of psychedelic fancy. The original songs are dense and intricate in texture and one can see why this was the advance guard for the heavy metal movement. The album features a young Rod Stewart as "vocalist extraordinaire" and Ron Wood on very able bass. A swaggering high point in the ascendancy of '60s British blues rock.

This is a brilliant album, dense in texture, full of physical and nervous energy, equally
appealing to mind and body. There is a guiding intelligence which enables these five
excellent, assertive musicians to work with and not against each other. The group benefits
from the addition of Nicky Hopkins, the most perfect of rock pianists (although his playing
is sometimes over-shadowed by the electrical sturm and drang around him, som... More >