![]() Shortly afterward, something unthinkable happened in the Rock World. This album grabbed me immediately, and it still remains another huge favorite of mine. Thankfully, I remembered thinking at the time, it was yet another shift in style, this time a mixture of Heavy Rock with Jazz-Rock again included on several tracks, and with enough complicated arrangements so that it could probably be semi-classified as Prog-Rock, at least on a handful of tracks. Then in 1976, the band’s next album Mind Exploding appeared. The rest of the band shines through also, with the energetic instrumentation, complex arrangements, and wickedly wild horn section just adding to the treat. Indeed, it’s now one of my favorite albums by the band, mostly due to two specific tracks: “Spanish Galleon” and “Sorrow,” both of the songs surpassing the eleven-minute mark and being absolutely the best vocal performances John Lawton ever delivered on vinyl. And what do you think happened? I’ll be damned, but I actually loved it. ![]() Indeed, it took me three decades of letting the album sit on the shelf before I once again dared to give it another listen. Therefore, this foray into Jazz-Rock was a total shock to the system (and to my record needle) and everything just rubbed me the wrong way. The cover was so misleading, showing the band, all dressed in black with their hook-handed mascot nearby, sitting at a banquet table in a gloomy Dracula-like castle, so I fully expected a return to the sound of the cherished debut album, of which I was still so enamored. To be honest, I hated the album at the time. Hell, it’s basically Lucifer’s Friend meets Blood, Sweat & Tears. The Banquet album is a full-out foray into Jazz-Rock territory with the use of a brass section throughout. Then, in 1974, the band made the biggest, most jarring change in style yet. I’m Just A Rock ‘N’ Roll Singer is (for the most part) less complex, more straight-forward hard rock on many tracks, some jazzy influences on others, and a few off-the-wall songs tossed in that definitely lean toward Prog-Rock. The third album a year later saw yet another change in style. The abrupt change in sound was jarring to many listeners, including myself, but the album was quite good nevertheless, and although it took some getting used to, it eventually grew on me. and many of the tracks have serious Progressive-Rock tendencies. Here, the band abandoned the Deep Purple/Uriah Heep Hammond-heavy metal of their debut in favor of tunes with more complicated arrangements, the addition of piano & synths, acoustic guitar, strings, etc. Instead, they decided to make the first of many changes to come when, in 1972, they released their second album, Where The Groupies Killed The Blues. ![]() A perfect 5-Star affair if I’ve ever heard one! Unfortunately, the band never produced another album with the exact same sound. It’s probably one of the best albums I bought in my earliest days of collecting records (and at full import price) way back in the 70s. To my mind, this is probably one of the best early metal albums in history, rivaling Purple’s In Rock and Heep’s Look At Yourself albums, and today, it’s considered a classic Krautrock album. On this album, the band chose to also deliver eight tracks in the style of Deep Purple and Uriah Heep, only with darker, more eerie undertones (probably to fit the name of the band and to match the bloody, sinister-looking cover featuring their hook-handed mascot…a cover that gave me nightmares, therefore I loved it, of course). And like those other singers, I consider John Lawton one of my favorite rock singers of all time. The album featured wickedly heavy guitar and Hammond organ, driving rhythms, and a wide-ranged English singer by the name of John Lawton who possessed an instantly recognizable voice and could belt out the tunes (including producing killer screams) in a style similar to both Ian Gillan (Deep Purple) and Dave Byron (Uriah Heep). Lucifer’s Friend is probably one of the most unique bands in rock’s history, seeing that, early in their career, they kept altering their style with each new album.įormed in Germany back in 1970, they blasted onto the scene with their debut Lucifer’s Friend album, which made quite a few future metal-heads sit up and take notice (I certainly did when I first heard the album a few years later). ![]()
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