Budgie “Budgie” (1971)

Adopting Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality as a sludgy sonic template while staying grounded in a stomping psych-blues that even in 1971 must have sounded like a bit of a throwback, Budgie are among the truly unsung purveyors of Heavy in its infancy. Like Ozzy Osbourne, Burke Shelley’s voice anticipates the Brit-metal wail that would become a standard—though in Shelley’s case, the sense of adenoidal strain also anticipates Geddy Lee’s shriek, meaning of course that he’s bound to put off a lot of listeners. Me, I think it sounds just fine, a striking counterpoint to the dark mood of the trio’s bottom-heavy music. Derivative moments detract slightly from the proceedings—the middle section of “Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman,” for example, is a bit too close to the middle section of Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused” for comfort—but on the whole this debut already puts the group in the upper ranks of that early-70s “power trio” sound, and their whimsically silly lyrics are a refreshing change from the pseudo-mystical drama that their counterparts were dealing in. It’s a shame these guys are unknown outside the UK; I have yet to find any of their albums for a reasonable price. So I’m now considering paying unreasonable prices—I like ’em that much. –Will