IN FOR THE KILL!

After 2 good and one excellent album, Budgie lost something. I call it their drive and urge, their primal scream. Especially the vocalist Burke Shelley doesn't sound as piercing as he used to. Overall the band sounds a bit weary and doesn't manage to progress their sound much beyond the previous achievements.

The quality of the songs is still good though, In For The Kill and Crash Course are short and solid metal classics. Wondering is the mandatory mellow song, but it's clearly a step down from their earlier exploits in that area. Zoom Club is a 10 minute droning workout, a jam on a simple blues riff that is too catchy to resist. Both the vocals and lead guitars have a spontaneous and improvised touch, nice one.

The best part of the album is behind us. Hammer and Tongs returns to the Black Zeppelin stylings of their debut and isn't really remarkable. Another indication of their dwindling inspiration is the inclusion of album filling style-exercises like Running From My Soul, a hard-rock boogie that can't add much to its obvious reference point, Lazy from Deep Purple. Living On Your Own is more deserving. It doesn't have really memorable melodies but at least it's adventurous and a pleasant listen overall.

In for The Kill is a decent hard rock band from a band that was past its peak. But it still has enough good material to push it to 3 stars.