At first glance, the first group effort helmed by guitar god Jeff Beck upon his rocky departure from the Yardbirds has more than a few striking parallels with the debut of fellow ex-Yardbird Jimmy Page's Led Zeppelin. But the blues-rock of the Rod Stewart-fronted Jeff Beck Group's freshman effort far outshines Zep's riff and wail, infusing its guitar heaviness with subtle jazz and R&B shadings that foreshadow much of Beck's later work. Kicking off with a drastic, almost mournful rethink of the Yardbirds staple "Shapes of Things" and veering as far afield as Gershwin's "Ol' Man River," Truth was one of the late 1960s' most promising debuts. The laconic roadhouse booziness of "You Shook Me," the blues standard also covered with shrill abandon on Zeppelin's debut, best points up the stark differences between Beck and Page, making one wonder whether the '70s weren't dominated by the wrong supergroup. --Jerry McCulley