Deep Purple In Rock is, as its iconic cover suggests, a landmark in rock music. From its opening moments of mayhem to its final crash into incoherent noise, it is a fuzzbox fuelled masterpiece with not a single wasted moment. Its release was also a watershed moment for the band, a defiant and irrevocable statement that they were going in a different direction from that followed on their first three albums. It would be wrong, however, to suggest that the album came from nowhere. Not only was it one side in a musical debate that had been raging within the band, but its antecedents can be traced through both Deep Purple’s earlier releases and those of some of the source bands from which the principal players were drawn.

Sculpting In Rock takes up that challenge, exploring the roots of the album, placing it into its proper context to consider how it was produced as well as why it was produced. Part history, part essay, part memoir, the book is essential reading for any fan of Deep Purple, In Rock or the exciting, uncompromising, genre of which it is arguably the masterpiece.