02. Budgie Never Turn Your Back on a Friend 1973 (MCA)
Hard Rock
What kind of woman ruins my haze and ruins my soul!
Overview
Never Turn Your Back on a Friend would be Budgie’s finest moment to date and in theory it should’ve been the album that launched them into the stratosphere, that was inhabited by the likes of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Alice Cooper to name a few! But as so often the case with some of the albums that I’ve reviewed, quality seldom went with commercial success and a whole load of albums of real quality had already bitten the dust! In the case of
Never Turn Your Back on a Friend, Budgie would fall into that very large grey area, between the two poles of complete success and doomed failure that most bands faced. Budgie for all their plaudits, never even attained the popularity of say a band like Uriah Heep internationally and therefore had to settle, for just being a reasonably known band in their native UK. So with this in mind, this blazing welsh-trio would release their finest work to date in 1973 and it truly ranks as one of their most memorable albums. Their debut album had been a solid effort, that was centred around Burke Shelley’s thumping bass and Tony Bourge’s crushing guitar, and despite some album flaws (see review in Top 10 list for 1971) it still held up as one of the important ‘heavy’ debut albums of the early 1970s. Then there was their more adventurous second album
Squawk, which in many ways saw the band taking a step back in order to move forward
Never Turn Your Back on a Friend is without doubt that step forward for the band! On the recording of this album, they had decided to stop using the services of previously regular Sabbath producer Roger Bain and now decided to produce themselves this time around and production wise they got things spot on. Still on board though was cover artist Roger Dean of Yes fame, whose fantasy cover for
Never Turn Your Back on a Friend, certainly denotes there could be a proggy effort underneath it all, but of course Budgie were not a progressive rock band but very much a heavy rock outfit. The other striking thing about this album, is that the band of Burke Shelley, Tony Bourge and Raymond Phillips came across as an extremely tight and cohesive unit and they appeared to be cemented together for the long haul. So with their breakthrough on this album, it was a real surprise to see drummer Raymond Phillips pack his bags and leave the band, he would go onto form the Ray Phillips Band. His position in Budgie was eventually taken up by Peter Boot (for one album anyway) The band yet again delight us, with another round of highly imaginative song titles, always another ace served up by the band.
Burke Shelley- Bass/Vocals
Tony Bourge- Guitar
Raymond Phillips- Drums
Production- Budgie
Album
Breadfan- With its hyped up guitar intro, Breadfan shoots into a somewhat manic vocal main section and the guitars on this song don’t let up for a second, and neither does the tempo…..until of course it goes into its quieter relaxing section in the later part of the song……before picking up the manic pace again! Breadfan is often regarded as the band’s best known song and Metallica would go onto cover this song on the B-side of their “Eye of the Beholder” single.
Baby, Please Don’t Go- A pacey cover of the Big Joe Williams blues track and guess what, the pace doesn’t let up on this song either!
You Know I’ll Always Love You- One of the now typical acoustic interludes of the band, but this probably ranks as the best acoustic interlude that the band ever put out.
You’re the Biggest Thing Since Powdered Milk- With its heavy percussion intro (the band are really pulling out the stops here) this is over 8 minutes of a real heavy delight for the purist, with its bluesy calling card completely intact throughout the bulk of the song.
In the Grip of the Tyrefitter’s Hand- Some real guitar crunching to start the b-side of the album, before the song moves into some very dynamic territory, all accompanied by Burke Shelley’s decisive sounding vocals and Tony Bourge’s guitar.
Riding My Nightmare- Something of a soft-sounding filler, but it’s still a nice sounding later album track to listen to.
Parents- The album closer is a slow to steady closing track that clocks in at around 10 minutes and hust seems to breeze through, before fading out to the sound of seagulls at a beach.
Verdict
Never Turn Your Back on a Friend is in many ways the culmination of all the best aspects of the first two albums. The band have maintained their base sound and have polished in slower tracks and mood to meld with their overall sound. The end result is an album of contrasts, that shares the same bed and everybody seems to be just fine in the sack together! The album gives the listener a unique combination of metal power chords, bluesy sweating and then the gall to just drift into a song like “You Know I’ll Always Love You” a sensitive sounding acoustic number, that easily could’ve gone on a Simon and Garfunkel album. The kick-off track “Breadfan” is without doubt a potent proto-speed metal effort that never ceases to excite the listener and the song is probably made even more special by its relaxing section about three quarters of the way through, which then really sets off the finale section. “You’re the Biggest Thing Since Powdered Milk” is one of the album’s showpiece songs and truly displays the band’s power blues influences over a splendid eight minutes. The best is kept till about halfway through the song though, as the vocals are picked up with greater earnest and Burke Shelley doesn’t actually sound like Burke Shelley at all! (According to the credits, only he sings lead vocals on the album) in fact the track sounds more like Led Zeppelin at times rather than Budgie! This song is matched quality wise by the superb “In the Grip of the Tyrefitter’s Hand” where the decisive sounding vocals of Burke Shelly, sit on an enviable level with Tony Burke’s work on the guitar…….hell this song is dynamic in every sense! These last two, are the album’s two outstanding tracks in terms of musical accomplishment and certainly share the same table as the previous Budgie landmarks of “Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman” “Homicidal Suicidal” and “Hot as a Docker’s Armpit” from their first two albums. Budgie had always mixed up their core sound, with a combination of both faster and slower tracks and here on this album, the contrast at times seems seamless as the songs despite their differences just effortlessly drift into one another. The band would follow up this album, with another one of their essential releases
In for the Kill released the following year. These early Budgie releases are quite simply for the real metal connoisseur out there, a connoisseur that’s looking for a real background into one of the genre’s best and most influential bands of the decade!