BUDGIE: BANDOLIER (1975)
1) Breaking All The House
Rules; 2) Slipaway; 3) Who Do You Want For Your Love; 4) I Can't See My
Feelings; 5) I Ain't No Mountain; 6) Napoleon Bona-Part, pts. 1 & 2.
Arguably the last album of Budgie's «classic»
period, Bandolier is also fairly
short — just six compositions, with the long ones being fairly repetitive at
that. Nevertheless, it is hard to guess that they were running out of steam,
because on the whole, the results are quite satisfactory. The music is a little
less heavy than last time (nothing even remotely approaching the evil bass
blasts of ʽIn For The Killʼ), but still heavy enough and riff-a-licious enough
to keep the entertainment value high while they're poking around basic boogie,
funky R&B, and faintly proggy flourishes. Oh, and they have yet another
drummer here, Steve Williams, although I honestly can't tell where he is to be
found on the album sleeve — those parrakeet heads are quite confusing.
Anyway, the spot to aim for here is the epic
ʽNapoleon Bona-Partʼ. The first part is a rather inconspicuous, melancholic
acoustic/slide ballad, but the second is a vicious galloping monster with a
chuggin' riff that is half-thrash and half Morricone, heroic vocals and solos,
and a brace-yourself race to the end; the bit where Tony enters with yet
another high-pitched, banshee-wailing counter-riff at around 5:20 is, in fact,
my single favorite sonic moment in the entire Budgie catalog — the perfect
answer to that eternally nagging question, «how to double the excitement when
it's already there?» With a little nudge to the imagination department, you
could also think of that second part as a musical representation of a Napoleon
cavalry assault — crushing everything in its path as presumed, but then
suddenly disappearing into thin air. Kind of agrees with the Napoleonic
fantasies of the protagonist, too — and, come to think of it, they were almost
ready for their own Waterloo just as well, if you pardon the triteness of this
remark.
Next to ʽNapoleonʼ, the opening long number is a
bit more primitive and lightweight, but I still respect it how the band is able
to take one of the world's most obvious five-note sequence and promote it like
The Riff To End All Riffs, returning to it over and over and over until it
suddenly begins to produce a mantra-like effort, especially at the end, where
there's, like, no escaping it — the
band should have stopped long ago, but it just keeps returning and returning,
like a homeless dog that can endear itself to you by stubbornly sticking
around, until it feels like family despite your strongest psychological
resistance. Maybe this is what they
really mean by ʽBreaking All The House Rulesʼ, although, actually, the song is
about a family man succumbing to some fleshy temptation. Can you imagine a nerdy, freaky fellow like
Burke Shelley succumbing to temptation? On the other hand, it doesn't seem like
he is the one taking the initiative
here.
The rest of the album is spottier: ʽWho Do You
Want For Your Loveʼ starts out on the wrong note, either as an unfunny parody
on or an unsuccessful imitation of a sentimental funk ballad, then picks up a
more proper groove, but still refuses to match the awesomeness of ʽZoom Clubʼ;
the ballad ʽSlipawayʼ has some pretty solos, but little else; ʽI Can't See My
Feelingsʼ, later covered by Iron Maiden, relies too much on borrowed chords
(from ʽSunshine Of Your Loveʼ, ʽFoxy Ladyʼ, and a couple Sabbath songs) to
provide much of a memorable melody; and what the hell made them go out and
cover Andy Fairweather-Low? ʽI Ain't No Mountainʼ sounds like a really, really
stupid hillbilly joke, a barroom rocker without any redeeming humor to it.
Would the next step be Gary Glitter? This just isn't like Budgie at all.
Still, that one kind of embarrassing song
aside, the rest of the album ranges from awesome (the bookmarking tunes) to
passable (everything else), and to me, that is enough for a modest thumbs up
rating, particularly since after 1975, such ratings would be harder and harder
to come by. You can already see the beginning of the demise — the fate of this
band was always directly dependent on the strength of Tony's riffs, and with
the musicians moving into other, less riff-dependent directions, they would
inevitably lose out. But Bandolier
still features barely enough of the classic, vintage Budgie style to make the
jump. As to whatever follows — buyer beware!
Again two good songs - the opener and the closer. Again Budgie is better at acoustic stuff when incorporated in a hardrocking environment with riffs. Napoleon borrows from Hard Loving Man indeed (as later Barracude would) and offers an entirely new perspective. My favourite moment is the transition; so natural, so smooth.
ReplyDeleteBetter to neglect the rest.
It's not "Napoleon Bona-Part, pts. 1 & 2", it's "Napoleon Bona-Part 1" and "Napoleon Bona-Part 2". You've killed the pun!
ReplyDeleteMy A&M LP displays it in three parts
ReplyDelete