Clash of the album covers

Some weird flying thingies on covers this time. It is...


Budgie-Squawk

vs.


Uriah Heep-High and mighty

***Which cover do you prefer?

Clash of the album covers

Round two of the 1970's double header.


Budgie-Never turn your back on a friend

vs.


Rush-A farewell to kings

***Which cover do you prefer?

Clash of the album covers

Here you go...


Budgie-If I Were Britannia I'd Wave the Rules

VS.


Hawkwind-Hall of the Mountain Grill

**Which cover do you prefer?

Battle of the bands

Back in 2006 (I think) I ran a monthly feature called Battle of the bands. I would just toss two bands out and ask which you liked better. I decided to revive the idea and do it this year as a monthly segment. Only I'll try to offer up a little on each band and then you can chime in for which band you prefer. This month it is....





Budgie

Vs.




Pentagram


Budgie hail from Wales and started churning out their brand of heavy progressive, quirky music four decades ago. They lasted until the early 80's before breaking up. Then towards the end of that decade Metallica covered two of their songs and a new generation of fans were introduced to them. They reformed a while back and continue to tour. The band has gone through some line-up changes and several sound changes over the years.

Pentagram hail from Virginia and also started out in the early 1970's, but only released a few singles in the 70's. They broke up and reformed in the 1980's (notice a trend beginning) then started releasing albums. They went through more periods of break-ups and reforming with a lot of different members. They very much influenced the doom movement. A lot of their older songs from the 70's have been released on recent collections and they have re-corded a number of them over the years.

***So which band do you prefer? Feel free to add why you chose that band if you like.

Clash of the album covers

I have been looking at a great deal of covers this week so I decided to do another one. So it's...

Budgie-Night Flight

vs.


Iron Maiden-Killers

***So which cover do you prefer?

Some more mini-reviews

I am still making it through that stack of older CDs that I picked up a few weeks ago. I am finding that some are gems, some are not and the rest fall at different levels in between. So here are five more that I listened to this past week.

Budgie-Power Supply (1980)
It was the 80's and Budgie had changed guitarists yet this was probably their best album in six years at that point. A much heavier, more raw album than they had done in some time. This one gets overlooked far too often because too many people assume this was after their prime.

Survivor-Vital Signs (1984)
Almost every song sound like something that someone would pick to have played at their wedding. I like some AOR and the vocals are strong, but this is just so sappy that I can only take it in small doses. Plus the fact that so many songs here were overplayed on the radio back in 84-85.

Cycle sluts from hell (1991)
This is a mixed bag overall and I actually bought this on cassette when it came out. Some of the songs are joke songs and they work, but then they try to be sort of serious and those songs are just alright. It would have been stronger as just a total joke album.

MSG-Save yourself (1989)
I liked when Robin McAuley sang for MSG, he had a good voice and was a nice fit. This album is decent, but it's a just a bit retrained at times. It really seemed like they needed for the music to just explode a little more and the album could have used that extra energy.

LA Guns-Cocked and loaded (1989)
I think I wore out a copy of this on cassette back then. It's still good, but not nearly as explosive as I remember it being. I think this band's biggest problem was that even when they rocked they had problems really defining their own sound.

The Budgie CD was the only one I had not heard before. The Survivor CD was about like I remembered it being, the LA Guns and Cycle Sluts were not as good as I remember them being and the MSG one may have been a little better than I remember it being years ago. There you go, I may post some more of these as I eventually make it through the rest of the pile.