BUDGIE — Bandolier (review)

BUDGIE — Bandolier album cover Album · 1975 · Hard Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
2/5 ·
Warthur
Opening with the barnstorming Breaking All the House Rules, Bandolier kicks off well, but unfortunately Budgie were never the most consistent of bands and this is only underlined by Slipaway (A Parrot Fashion Ball), a horrible experiment in mixing acoustic soft rock with a little bit of blue-eyed soul. This is followed up with a similarly limp track in the form of What Do You Want For Your Love, which captures Burke Shelley doing an unconvincing Robert Plant impersonation in a horrible funk-tinged soft rock piece, reminiscent of a bad cover of The Crunge from Led Zep's Houses of the Holy with only a rather generic guitar solo or two to remind us that we're still at the edge of metal territory.

The album perks up on the second side with I Can't See My Feelings (featuring some honest to goodness cowbell), but slumps again with the simplistic singalong I Ain't No Mountain. The closing Napoleon Bona Parts 1 and 2 is padded out with uninteresting acoustic filler (such as the overlong intro) and doesn't stand up to Budgie epics from previous albums.

The bottom line is that on this album Budgie watered down their distinctive proto-speed metal sound with all the other influences third-string hard rock groups from the mid-1970s were dabbling in, with the result that the album ends up sounding anonymous, cliched, and at points downright dull. By the end of the decade Budgie would be regularly blown out of the water by far heavier and far more distinctive groups like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden; they should be remembered for more influential and important albums than this one.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

Pure Negative Attitude Hardcore Punk
FREEHOWLING
Buy this album from MMA partners
Inequiem Hardcore Punk
CICADIA
Buy this album from MMA partners
Cemetery Symmetry Hardcore Punk
HUMBLE ABODE
Buy this album from MMA partners
Sadistic Memoirs Of A Psychopath Deathcore
CONSUME THE ASSAILANT
Buy this album from MMA partners
It Wasn't Supposed To Be Like This (Instrumental) Hardcore Punk
PULSES.
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Galleons - Electric Emotions
GALLEONS
Bosh66· 9 hours ago
Galleons - Elsewhere (Official Lyric Video)
GALLEONS
Bosh66· 9 hours ago
Galleons - Neon Dreams (Official Lyric Video)
GALLEONS
Bosh66· 9 hours ago
Galleons - I Travel East As Fievel Goes West Pt. 1 - Official Lyric Video
GALLEONS
Bosh66· 9 hours ago
FREEHOWLING - SCARS FT. AARON MATTS (TEN56.) [OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO]
FREEHOWLING
Bosh66· 9 hours ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed