Budgie

The latest classic band I have first gotten around to are these Welsh practitioners of what the Danish music press called "concrete rock": The grittier, louder, less technically adept and perhaps more blue-collar younger brother of psychedelic and progressive rock from which heavy metal would quickly evolve.

In what I've heard so far of Budgie's classic output this genre categorization I'm trying to revive is particularly appropriate. Much of their music has this bleak "urban decay" vibe but in a more down-to-earth vibe than Black Sabbath, perhaps closer to certain Thin Lizzy songs but with a more ambitious and expansive approach to songwriting. (and not sounding that much like either group) I'm spinning their self-titled debut right now and I'm imagining it as the soundtrack to a hypothetical action film from its 1971 year of release.

Going through their discography in chronological order, like I usually do when discovering a new music group, is again something I find particularly interesting in Budgie's case as it sees them move from the gritty hard blues rock of the S/T over the more progressive songwriting sensibility of Squawk to them graduating from concrete rock to full-blown heavy metal group on In for the Kill which easily can compete with the first couple Judas Priest LPs in heaviness. (if not speed)

I also like the strong sense of visual aesthetic their band concept has, what with their colourful cover art featuring avian imagery often in the shape of the bird-man mascot. Perhaps the first case of a heavy metal mascot as popularized by Iron Maiden's Eddie and Motörhead's Mr. Snaggletooth?

For some reason they always reminded me of a less adept version of Wishbone Ash.....but I do have the very first one though I haven't played it in a long time. What's considered their best album..?

In for the Kill is my favourite as well. I haven't heard Never Turn Your Back on a Friend which is the second most popular pick though.

dr wu23 wrote: For some reason they always reminded me of a less adept version of Wishbone Ash.....but I do have the very first one though I haven't played it in a long time. What's considered their best album..?

Never Turn Your Back........ Is the best from the several albums I've heard/own, BUT, I have to say that Wishbone's debut whips any Budgie for me.....

Been listening a lot to these Celtic concrete-rockers over the last week, and I think I've got to go with the consensus of nominating Never Turn Your Back on a Friend as their best prog-rock album but In For the Kill as their best heavy metal album.

The former has basically everything I look for in that kind of music: Intricate songwriting with a fantastic sense of narrative structure, good use contrasting textures in each song and very detailed songwriting. For some reason I like Budgie much more than Led Zeppelin or Rush, the two bands they are most often compared to. On the latter of those two LPs, on the other hand, they almost start sounding like Judas Priest or Motörhead on some songs with the hard-edged angular riffing and dark gritty feel.

I wonder if the reason Budgie aren't more known could be that they're on one hand too scruffy and down-to-earth for many prog-rock fans, but also too off-kilter and quirky for many metalheads? I don't know how it was in the UK, but in Denmark and Sweden even though most early metal groups had one foot in progressive rock a lot of people in the prog-rock scenes here back then regarded those bands as a dumbed-down b*****dization of the style.

Great drummer.

Yeah, Budgie! Another band on my to-get list.

Edited by KingCrInuYasha - June 21 2014 at 19:19

I think that Budgie are alot better than Black Sabbath. The first 5 albums are all equally fantastic