Buffalo - Volcanic Rock (1973) torrent

Buffalo were an Australian hard rock band formed in August 1971 in Sydney by founding mainstay Dave Tice on co-lead vocals (ex-Head). Fellow founders, also from Brisbane's blues-rockers Head, were Paul Balbi on drums, John Baxter on guitar, and Peter Wells on bass guitar. Tice and Wells had been together in groups since 1966 with The Odd Colours and Strange Brew before forming Head in 1968. Head had relocated to Sydney in mid-1970, its line-up changed with the acquisition of Alan Milano on co-lead vocals (ex-Mandala) and a new musical direction led to the name change. 'Buffalo' was chosen (according to legend, randomly off an Australian map) as being more marketable than 'Head', with its sexual and drug connotations. Alongside Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs and Blackfeather, Buffalo pioneered Australia's heavy metal, pub rock and alternative rock movements. Buffalo were the first Australian act to be signed to Vertigo Records, however they remained largely an underground band.

Following the successful release of Dead Forever (1972), the four-piece line-up of John Baxter, Jimmy Economou, Dave Tice and Peter Wells recorded their next two albums, Volcanic Rock (July 1973) and Only Want You For Your Body (June 1974), with Lee producing again. Allmusic's Eduardo Rivadavia found their second album was "about as raw as heavy metal got in the early 1970s" and "all of its crudity was absolutely intentional". He felt that their third album had the group "honing their songwriting into far more focused and compact heavy rock nuggets". McFarlane stated that the band had "kept up the scorching, heavy metal mayhem, with Baxter's savage guitar work and Tice's demented vocals well to the fore" for both albums. Their use of controversial cover artwork continued: Volcanic Rock has a "graphic yet hilarious depiction of the female form as a menstruating volcano" while Only Want You For Your Body has an "obese, screaming woman shackled to a torture rack". Some record chains refused to stock these albums. (extract from Wikipedia)

It might be a gross understatement to say that Buffalo were challenging the established norms of the early 1970's. If the late '60's had been about sunshine, love, peace and communing with nature, Buffalo not only kicked it heavily to the kerb, but stomped on it repeatedly. And again.

Buffalo are what would have resulted if The Cream, Black Sabbath, The Doors and Jimi Hendrix got together and spawned a bastard lovechild. The music is heavy, bluesy, monolithic hippy 'head' music, but did not trip off into 'peace and love' mundanity. Rather, the lyrics are deep and meaningful journeys into the darkness of the human soul, battles of the mind and expositions of the struggle between power and submission. For such primordial rock, Buffalo showed a surprising amount of sophistication and substance, characteristics that strengthened over the years and subsequent recordings as their songwriting became more varied and different band members came and went.

The files are 24-bit FLAC, sampled @ 96kHz. Although the source was CD, there still appeared to be some pop and crackle, so I removed this in Soundforge 10. I ran it through Audacity to hard limit the levels (as it seemed a bit clippy originally). The album peaks at -0.2dB (no clipping). The tracks are clean, mean and somewhat obscene!

Cover, information booklet and disc art is included.

So, if you think your stereo can handle it, download this gem, crank it up and trip to the walls with Buffalo - Volcanic Rock!

Cheers,
MoofieMan.

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