#500 Budgie - Never Turn Your Back on a Friend

1973'd!

I'm no aficionado, but there seems to be two basic strains of metal: the kind that trucks in pure, blunt force thunder and the kind that trucks in clean, clear guitar lines. Call it Mace Metal vs Sword Metal, adumbrating a scale from Electric Wizard (or maybe Sunn O)))) to Def Leopard.

This album, more so than most of the heavier metal of the age, embraces that later edge, full of super clean riffs with swung with fuzz trailing off the back, and some crisp, popping bass lines. Oh, those bass lines, mixed so high and so clean that they define the album; its an approach I've never heard anything quite like, leading to a Minutemen-level democracy among the instruments. The clear highlight is Breadfan, returning again and again to a perfect buzzsaw riff*, blowing past any objection I might otherwise have to the donetodeath 1973 vocal approach, but In the Grip of a Tyrefitter's Hand is also a big, burly stormer.

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I'd never heard of Budgie, a Welsh band about 10% as famous as the fairly-obscure-in-their-own-right Super Furry Animals. Their biggest claim to fame seems to be the aforementioned Breadfan, which seems in turn to mostly be famous because Metallica covered it. But the album is downright solid, combining heavy metal slashes with an overblown, slightly sloppy garagey charm. Heck these guys put out a 10 albums during an eleven year span from '71 to '82, I'm a bit curious what else the put together.

That said, that big fat popping bass sound started grinding after a while, infringing on some of Parents's finest final moments and downright dominating You're the Biggest Thing I Ever Saw. And there's nothing wholly original here - they're a clearly a band weaned on American rock and roll's heavy hitters, but it's a quietly charming album full of big loud rock and roll moments 3.5/5

You might like this if: you like 70's hard rock and metal, anywhere between Sabbath and Zeppelin, and want to hear the same basic sounds with a few twists. And big, weird, popping bass.

* one that, as far as I can tell, Boris ripped off wholesale on Electric