Budgie (1971)

WHAT YOU SAID

Geoff Ringrose: This is exactly why I joined this group. I know of Budgie peripherally… mostly covers like Metallica’s version of Breadfan. I just played this album front to back. What a bass groove and volume! They’re the Welsh Rush. Off to the record store now. Keep up the great work! John Davidson: File under ‘good but not great’. There are hints of Black Sabbath and Zep, and musically they were ahead of their time, but for the most part they just didn’t have the songs. Mike Knoop: A friend once described Budgie as “Rush with better song titles”. As proof I offer Nude Disintegrating Parachute Woman. Speaking of NDPW, I have had the Budgie anthology Ecstasy Of Fumbling for years – and never knew I was only getting half the song! Now that I know what I was missing – extra soloing and Burke Shelley’s wordless harmonizing with it – I can’t go back. The whole album is fantastic proto-metal. It’s like finding out the first Black Sabbath album had a just as tough – if not as scary – little brother. Brian Carr: I imagine this line has been used to describe other albums, but Budgie’s debut is so drenched in smoke I feel like I got a contact high listening to it. Budgie sounds to me like a Zeppelin/ Sabbath cover band that decided to write some original tunes and record them in their garage. Extremely lo-fi. Good players, but not sure about the Rush comparisons.

Tom Cöle: A classic, and one which set the template for the lightand-shade approach Budgie would take on most of their early albums: showcasing bludgeoning proto-metal alongside delicate acoustic numbers (compare Everything In My Heart and You And I to the powerhouse riffage of The Author and Rape Of The Locks).