Lucifer's Friend - Lucifer's Friend (Hard Rock 1970)

Lucifer's Friend is probably most known Lawton's project after Uriah Heep. Band was formed in 1970. (from almost a same lineup band Asterix)

This is the first album by heavy metal/progressive rock band Lucifer's Friend, released in 1970. There are many Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin influences heard throughout this album, most notably the dark lyrics heard on many songs, especially the song "Lucifer's Friend." There is a little controversy that "Ride In The Sky" is a rip off of the "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin, but this is not true due to the fact that "Ride In The Sky" was written before Robert Plant wrote "Immigrant Song." There are also some very striking similarities between this album and Black Sabbath's debut because both are the first and self-titled albums by both bands, both have a self-titled song, and both have arguable anti-christ band names.

The British-born John Lawton was vocalist for a group called Stonewall. Peter Hecht, Dieter Horns, Peter Hesslein, and Joachim Reitenbach were members of a band called the German Bonds. The five joined together to record an album under the band name of Asterix in 1970, then changed their name to Lucifer's Friend and continued under that name. Another group called the Pink Mice was a side project by some of the members in 1971 minus Lawton.

The early albums were released on the Vertigo Records label in Europe, but in the United States those albums were released on a series of small independent record labels (Billingsgate, Janus, Passport), often a year or more after their release in Europe. Thus, despite airplay in some markets and a cult following, the band's albums were hard to find and commercial success eluded them. The band was finally signed to Elektra Records in the late 1970s who released three albums with a more commercial pop oriented sound, but by then interest in the band had waned; those albums were even less successful than the earlier ones.

Lucifer's Friend was known for changing musical styles and influences on each album. The self-titled 1970 debut had dark lyrics and a stripped-down guitar and organ style heavily influenced by Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath[citation needed]. That album is still sought after by fans of early heavy metal music. The second album, Where the Groupies Killed the Blues, took an entirely different direction; it was a very experimental album of progressive and psychedelic rock, mostly composed by John O'Brien Docker. On the third album, I'm Just a Rock & Roll Singer, they changed direction again, this time in the straightforward rock style popularized by such groups as Grand Funk Railroad, and gritty "life on the road" themes in the lyrics. Banquet featured extended, multi-layered jazz fusion compositions and a 30-piece backup band, alternating with some shorter tracks reminiscent of Chicago and Traffic. Those first four albums are all concept albums of a sort and along with the self-titled Asterix album are the most sought after today.

Mind Exploding established a holding pattern and tried to combine the jazz of Banquet with the garage-rock of Rock & Roll Singer, but was not as well received as the earlier albums. Vocalist John Lawton left in 1976 to join Uriah Heep and was replaced by Mike Starrs, former vocalist with Colosseum II. John Lawton returned for the 1981 album Mean Machine. On the two albums without Lawton they moved to a more commercial sound, on 1978's Good Time Warrior and 1980's Sneak Me In.

John Lawton's 1980 solo album on RCA, Heartbeat, was a Lucifer's Friend album in everything but name, with the lineup from Sneak Me In performing as backup musicians on that project. Lawton's official return, Mean Machine, found the band returning to heavy metal, this time in the vein of Rainbow. The band officially broke up in 1982 but briefly reformed in the early 1990s to release a new CD, Sumo Grip.

01. "Ride in the Sky" - 2:55
02. "Everybody's Clown" - 6:12
03. "Keep Goin'" - 5:26
04. "Toxic Shadows" - 7:00
05. "Free Baby" - 5:28
06. "Baby You're a Liar" - 3:55
07. "In the Time of Job When Mammon Was a Yippie" - 4:04
08. "Lucifer's Friend" - 6:12
09. "Horla" [Bonus]
10. "Lucifer's Friend" [Bonus]

Post by ChrisGoesRock