In Deep (Argent, 1973)

Released in the shadow of their biggest hit ("Hold Your Head Up"), In Deep had to deal with expectations the band had never had to live up to until now. Considering the band originated from the unexpected success of Rod Argent's old band right on its very last breath, Argent was largely immune from high expectations one may have expected from a successor band to the Zombies. Their earliest hit, "Liar", actually ended up benefiting Three Dog Night far more than the author, Russ Ballard, or the band. The second album, Ring of Hands, didn't unleash anything of note although it was a fine album. Then of course came the third album and a newly-earned reputation as a key prog-rock player. "Hold Your Head Up" is a bit of an anomaly in the Argent catalog in that it wasn't a Russ Ballard song, but a Rod Argent/Chris White creation, and they tended to have more progressive leanings. All Together Now shows the divide pretty well, but it has nothing on In Deep, which awkwardly tries to balance a Ballard-dominated A side with an Argent/White B side.

Ballard finally gets his hit-writing mojo back on this album, with "God Gave Rock and Roll to You" and the secondary "It's Only Money". While these are the more commercial portions of the album, they both show a growing dissatisfaction by Ballard of the music biz and probably his strange role in what often felt like somebody else's band. Meanwhile Argent, with his old Zombies bandmate Chris White, continued to move in a more prog direction. Although none of their songs here (except for minor holiday hit "Christmas for the Free") carried this album they are among the most interesting of the band's entire catalog, be it the moody "Losing Hold", the instrumentally-diverse and bouncy "Be Glad", or the mournful "Candles on the River". The album weirdly closes with the decidedly rootsy un-prog "Rosie", highlighting my main problem with the album, which is that it is sequenced poorly, with jarring transitions between the Ballard and Argent/White songs.

I picked up In Deep as a two-fer with it's successor album, Nexus, their final album with Ballard, which continues the Ballard vs. Argent/White issue. Following Ballard's departure (plus Chris White disassociating from the band), there was nothing to tether the band to a commercial sound, resulting in a hyper-prog couple of albums bordering on jazz-fusion. Finally, Rod Argent dropped the fiction of the Argent band name and launched his solo career.