Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell was a man and is also a band. Youngsters of today way well see the wacky cover above and hear the strange mix of sounds within and think they’re experiencing something entirely new. But, the auld heid knows the score.
Budgie have long been one of my favourite bands, but the man that was one half of what they were, guitartist Tony Bourge left in 78/79 and I never got to see them live. They carried on for a few years with a more standard metal sound and still pop up now and again with various guitar players. Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell know all this too and are big fans, because they’ve taken Budgie’s 70’s sound and claimed for themselves.
It’s uncanny at times, the guitar tones are perfect, the bass and drums would fit right onto an original Budgie track, but the big change is that the vocalist sounds like Arthur Brown or Captain Beefheart.
I was thinking that it’s great to hear someone ripping off Budgie instead of Sabbath just for a change, but as the album become more familiar I’m hearing note-for-note pieces lifted from Sabbath, the cheekiest ones being from The Warning.
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats is a stupid name and when I saw it on Black Sabbath’s UK tour poster months ago I dismissed them instantly, Oh, what a fool am I.
Aye, it’s Sabbath from the minute they pull on a velvet jacket to leave for the rehearsal room, but it’s mixed in with something of Hawkwind and other subtle flavours that I know so well but can’t place.
Sabbath’s tomorrow night, I’ll be doing my best not to miss the support for once.
It might look like I’m a little underwhelmed by these bands because they’re really just the sum of their influences and I know it, but that’s not the case at all. Uncle Acid’s two albums and the Shovell album are pretty much constants on my iPod or on the car stereo, I love them like the recently discovered 70’s relics they’re pretending to be.
The sounds are right, the groove is right, the look is right, it’s just maybe the individual character of the songs that doesn’t quite stand up the source of inspiration.
But what the hell, it’s money well spent. Peace signs at the ready: let’s rock.
