Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Budgie
Label: Repertoire Records
Released: 1971
Rating: 3/5
Budgie could hardly wait for the day they’d step through the studio door and record their debut! Roger Bain, who had also produced Black Sabbath’s debut a year earlier, took the producer’s seat. Budgie are a band whose riffs aren’t the prettiest. But they’re so astonishingly rock-driven and arrogant that, as a true rocker, you definitely get “knocked” flat on the floor!
In making their debut, Budgie basically played a gig in the studio! The sound is fascinatingly alive, yet, combined with what the studio could do, polished just enough. Not too much, but just enough. The band radiates incredible tightness and unbelievable devotion to rock’n’roll. Budgie immediately develop a brazen, amateurish sound. It’s the sound of a real rock’n’roll band.
Guts is wrapped in awfully thick guitar “pull offs”, the kind Tony Iommi, for example, used a lot at the time. Evidently the rock current of the day, with Black Sabbath and Pentagram, touched Budgie too. A particularly ruinous song in this respect is All Night Petrol. Distortion and long “pull offs” in half-step endings. The bass line is rattling and wound-up alive, the drums exploratory, ready for any escape into a proper, honest-to-goodness “jam”. Tony Bourge is a true R & B guitarist, on whom Hendrix made a big impression, which shows in his playing style too. With the opening Guts, Budgie introduce themselves as obscure rock’n’roll hellraisers. With the acoustic preludes Everything In My Heart and You And I, they stage short psychedelic escapes and at the same time remind us that The Beatles’ era wasn’t that long gone. Budgie came primarily out of “white blues” and rock’n’roll, but they were definitely also forged through the experience of jazz, as the longer “jam session” lessons in the middle of tracks attest. In The Author, Budgie are a notch more destructive in their unbending rocker stance, while in Nude Disentigrating Parachutist Woman they become outright thugs. This song characterizes the whole repertoire of early Budgie in the best possible way, their style and their mission! It carries everything mentioned. Psychedelic switch-offs, an extraordinarily stretched-out “jamming” in the middle section, and a devastating heavy metal guitar riff that leads into proper mental suffering of the soul, clad in shackles of chains. This song is the peak of the record, and Budgie still play it at their gigs without fail today.
When the indispensable screeching vocals of bassist Burke Shelley join in, there’s no more doubt that we’re facing a real power heavy rock trio! In all the very bold moments of the debut, which ran almost 41 minutes for that time (enviably long back then), we find a heap of proper heavy guitar riffs that pull Budgie far away from R&B. We can talk about an early prototype of heavy metal, with clearly drawn roots in blues and rock’n’ roll. The debut is an excellent “jam”. You can feel the band’s liveliness and true rock beat. Budgie perhaps offer their finest proto-stoner direction in the fantastic closer Homicidal Suicidal. This is real black rock’n’roll .Incredible how, besides the “riffing”, even in his guitar soloing Tony Bourge stylistically recalls his colleague Tony Iommi of their peers Black Sabbath.
Of course, right on the debut Budgie also shocked with a refined sense of black humor. Rape Of The Locks, with a venomous “roll drive” clad in total blackness, could be translated as “rape of the door locks”. With their debut, Budgie fantastically defined their presence. They played excellent black rock’n’roll of heavy, rolling riffs, which was provocatively fresh for the time and completely something new. Three lads with no pretense and no posturing. True rockers with a humble stance, sworn to their cause. Different from everything else! A band with a thick skin! “Budgie” is an excellent debut, adorned with nothing but authentic, raw and naked rock! And that’s enough!
Lineup
Burke Shelley – bass guitar, vocals
Tony Bourge – guitar
Raymond Phillips – drums
Production
Rodger Bain
Tracklist
1. Guts (4:20)
2. Everything In My Heart (0:52)
3. The Author (6:28)
4. Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman (8:41)
5. Rape Of The Locks (6:12)
6. All Night Patrol (5:57)
7. You And I (1:41)
8. Homicidal Suicidal (6:41)
Album length: 40:52
