LUCIFER'S FRIEND

Manic sreaming from power vocalist John Lawton appropriately initiate the proceedings on this prototypical metal album which has the evil twins of Lurch and Uncle Fester on the cover. The funny thing about this 1970 debut album from German band Lucifer's Friend is that it pre-dates anything that it can be compared to, with Ronnie James Dio type vocals, pre-metal guitar riffing and lyrics which deal with such disturbing topics as confusion, paranoia and doom. The album certainly has a gloomy feel to it as both the title and cover suggest, but with more of a psychedelic approach. It is not nearly as deep and dark as Black Sabbath's contemporary material which took concepts of doom and gloom to unreached depths. Nevertheless with the opening line, " Travelling this dark world, leavin' the Earth behind..." on the first track Ride The Sky you can rest assured that this album is going to be a real trip! From the cosmic opening to it's spooky conclusion with the title track, Lucifer's Friend features superior rock musicianship throughout ( guitarist Peter Hesselin was a former session man) with plenty of dynamic guitar/Hammond organ interplay. Fans of early Uriah Heep ( whom Lawton later joined ), Deep Purple and Black Sabbath who missed this one should check out these heavy metal hippies. A word of caution though. Only the first 8 tracks on the CD reproduction constitute the original vinyl edition of this work. The remaining 5 tracks are taken from a latter period when the band was taking more of a jazz-rock oriented direction.