Buffalo - Dead Forever (1972) 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.

In May 1972 they issued their debut single, "Suzie Sunshine", which was written by Baxter and Peter Brett. It was followed in the next month by their debut album, Dead Forever..., which was produced by Spencer Lee. Both the single and album sold well with the album sales reaching 25,000. This was despite commercial radio virtually blacklisting the band – they received little airplay prior to the emergence of public radio stations (such as Triple J and 3RRR) in the mid-1970s. Australian musicologist, Ian McFarlane, described the album's cover as "controversial" in that it depicted "a mournful, blood-soaked face peering through the eye socket of a skull" while buyers were advised to "Play this album LOUD". (extract from Wikipedia)

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 light noise reduction to eliminate most of the in-studio 'tape hiss' that was so prevalent in recordings of the day. I then 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 - Dead Forever!

Cheers,
MoofieMan.

To err is human... to SEED is devine! I thank all who continue to seed after downloading. You are the lifeblood of torrenting!