The Budos Band: VII (burnt orange vinyl) [DIAMOND WEST]

Why you'll love it

This is the limited burnt orange pressing on the band's own Diamond West label. Eleven new instrumentals of Afro-soul, psych and heavy funk from a band AllMusic once described as a "doom rock Afro-soul big band with a '70s touch."

This edition

Limited edition burnt orange vinyl
Diamond West pressing (cat# DWR007)
Eleven tracks, six on Side A and five on Side B

About the album

The Budos Band started at a jam session at The Five Spot in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, in 2005, and two decades later they are still doing what they do best: big, menacing instrumentals built on horns, organ, fuzz guitar and a rhythm section that sounds like it could knock down a wall. They spent years on Daptone Records, where they became the label's resident heavyweights, and their sound has moved from Ethiopian-flavoured Afro-soul into 70s rock, proto-metal and soundtrack funk. One press note said they sounded like Quentin Tarantino had been made music supervisor on a Bond film, which remains the best description anyone has come up with. The lineup has always floated a little, but the core sound, two trumpets, baritone and tenor sax, organ, congas and a very loud guitar, has never wavered.

VII keeps the titles as pulpy as the music: "Thrice Crowned," "Lair of 1000 Serpents," "Curse of the Ivory Fang," "Escape from Ptenoda City." It plays like a night at a grindhouse cinema with an excellent house band. Put it on loud, and it is perfectly normal to feel the need to walk slowly towards the camera.