Lucifer's Friend

I can't believe I have found this CD. I was looking for it since 2010. I found this to be the first progressive metal album since it's the first band to successfully combine heavy metal and progressive rock. It has also some jazz elements around. The voice of John Lawton is just outstanding, I can't believe how high his notes are. it really has no weak point at all, the entire album is just amazing, one of the best I have ever heard in my life.As I said, I certainly think this is one of the best progressive metal albums to ever be recorded and also the first one of this genre. It has a lot of killer bass riffs and amazing guitar solos. The drummer is perfect, and the voice of Lawton has nothing to envy to frontmans like Plant, Halford or Geoff Tate, he's unique!I can't believe how they didn't went mainstream after this huge success... it must be because if you listen to their first five albums you would tell that everyone is from a different band, but they aren't... not even from different musicians, for me they just went from progressive metal with this CD to progressive rock with "where the groupies killed the blues", after that they made a mix between jazz and rock with a lot of groove in "I'm just a rock and roll singer" to finally do a record of progressive rock jazz with "banquet" and finally a friendly Radio rock and hard rock in "mind exploding".If I had to choose the most criminally underrated band ever I would choose Lucifer's friend. This CD is what every fan of Rush, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath MUST HEAR and buy if you have the chance. You will never regret this buy, give them a listen

My current favorite album. So rich, complex, fun, rocking, metal, psychedelic, playful, dark, light, and cool. Like Deep Purple meets Black Sabbath meets Uriah Heep and they go back a few years in a time machine to make a record that seems just slightly ahead of its time.Vinyl is flat, quiet, and dynamic. After looking for a good quality original pressing and finding nothing affordable I researched this RE. It got good reviews and I can confirm it's worth it. It's such a great record that I'll probably shell out for an original eventually, but this is great for listening.

I wish I could give it a hundred stars. I have loved this album since the 70's. I still have it on vinyl but wanted to get it on CD finally. This is one of THE BEST heavy metal albums out there. The only bands that can be compared to LUCIFER'S FRIEND is Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Any music lover should check this out. I wish I could see your face listening to this for the first time. You will be shocked and in love with this album. And don't forget this was released in 1970. They were way ahead of their time. Enjoy... I know I will....

Not my kind of music, was a gift and my son never said anything about it yet.

I bought this album when it first came out in the early 70's. The lead singer sounds a lot like Dio at times. Also the music sounds like one part Black Sabbath, one part Led Zeppelin and one part Deep Purple. Couple of great songs on this and the rest of the album is listenable if you like the early heavy metal Rock genre. My only complaint also applied to the original LP I had, the recording quality could have been better. Still, it's Rock'n'Roll. Right?

This was one of the first true metal bands of the 70's. Their debut album is also the name of the band - "Lucifer's Friend". This first album is pure metal - not thrash, not hate, not BS attitude, and not stupidly simple three-chord progressions. This album contains MUSIC, real music, in the style of the 1970s that was (and still is) called "heavy metal". 40 years later this CD still out-rocks most of the cr*p on the market today.One interesting thing to remember: the band produced 11 albums, and every single one of them was done in a different style. Which means that their first album was their only heavy metal album, even though a few tracks on the others albums might qualify as "metal".Check out the Wikipedia entry on "Lucifer's Friend" for more information on the band. And do your self a favor - get this album and enjoy TRUE metal music!

This is a review of the 2010 Universal Music digi pack version...the album itself is an easy 5 stars to all lovers of classic early 70's hard rock but I had to mention that this version is the one to get as it sounds better than my old Repertoire version...louder and a little crisper. Was trying to check out this version for a while but it's been hard to get for a decent price and I finally made the score.

Completely cool, from the cover art to the song titles to the hard rock sounds. This is Kratrock at its finest, this album has everything your looking for is you like early hard rock heavy metal stuff. My favorite song on the disk is Everybodies Clown, which has some great riffs. This album is the only to have that sound for this band. others are prog to jazz fusion to just plain old R&R, I would check them all, especially Banquet and Where the Groupies killed the Blues.

Excellent album with John Lawton on vocals.

La qualità audio è buona.Equalizzazione piena ed equilibrata con un buon dettaglio

Buen producto, vendedor genial.

How did I miss this band a great album of you like your ROCK get it🎸👍

LUCIFER'S FRIEND (LF) - eine Hard Rock Band aus der BRD mit einem englischen Sänger (John Lawton), der dann im Jahr 1976 die Nachfolge von David Byron bei Uriah Heep antreten sollte.Das Debut-Album von LF wurde im November 1970 (!!!) eingespielt und beweist, dass auch eine deutsche Band zur damaligen Zeit mehr zu bieten hatte als das, was allgemein (sehr oft abschätzend) als "Krautrock" bezeichnet wurde ! Da die gute alte Hammond-Orgel neben der Gitarre als gleichberechtigtes Instrument eingesetzt wurde, kam der Sound von LF schon sehr nahe an Deep Purple und Uriah Heep heran. Auch die Songs der LP "Lucifer's Friend" hatten alle internationales Niveau und brauchten sich vor den Kompositionen der damaligen englischen Hard Rock-Elite (Led Zep, Purple, Heep, Sabbath) in keinster Weise verstecken. Der Track "Ride The Sky" (Opener der LP) hat absolutes Hitpotential und steht einem Song wie z.B. "Fireball" (von Purple) oder "Easy Living" (von Heep) in Nichts nach ! Auf der gesamten LF-LP wird durchgehend ausgezeichneter Hard Rock geboten und man erkennt sofort, dass die beteiligten Musiker ihr Handwerk voll und ganz beherrschen. Aber trotz all dieser positiven Aspekte war der Band kein besonders großer Erfolg beschieden.Die persönliche Situation der Bandmitglieder von LF war Anfang der 70er Jahre schon als kurios zu bezeichnen. Der Sänger John Lawton war damals ein Mitglied der Les Humphries Singers. Bei den LHS verdiente er gutes Geld, mit der Band Lucifer's Friend ging er seinen eigentlichen musikalischen Vorlieben (= harte Rockmusik) nach. Mehrere Bandmitglieder von LF waren in den 70er Jahren fest bei der Big Band von James Last angestellt, wo sie ein geregeltes Einkommen hatten. Nur so konnten sich diese Musiker damals finanziell über Wasser halten.Als dann 1976 der damalige Sänger David Byron bei Uriah Heep ausstieg bzw. gefeuert wurde, schlug die grosse Stunde von John Lawton. Er wurde der neue Uriah Heep-Sänger, durfte aber nach 3 LPs und 3 Jahren Bandzugehörigkeit im Jahr 1979 (nach Streitigkeiten mit dem Bandleader Ken Hensley) schon wieder seinen Hut nehmen. Danach machte er wieder eine LP mit Lucifer's Friend ("Mean Machine" - 1981), aber sehr lange dauerte diese Zusammenarbeit auch nicht. Im Jahr 1994 nahm Lawton dann nochmals eine CD mit Lucifer's Friend auf ("Sumo Grip"), aber von großem Erfolg war auch dieses Album nicht gekrönt. Soweit mir bekannt ist, war das dann bis heute das letzte Lebenszeichen von LF.Aber mit ihrem Debut-Album von 1970 ist dieser Gruppe ein wahrer Klassiker gelungen, auch wenn die allermeisten Rock-Fans diese Tatsache nicht mitbekommen haben ! Meiner Meinung nach waren Lucifer's Friend später nie wieder so gut wie auf dieser ersten LP.Mann - was war das damals (musikalisch gesehen) für eine geile Zeit !!!Natürlich kommt hier nur die Höchstwertung in Frage !Jeder Hard Rock-Fan, der auf die Mucke von Deep Purple und Uriah Heep (Anfang der 70er Jahre) steht, sollte diese LP/CD eigentlich in seiner Sammlung haben !