This album, for me, is where Tucky Buzzard starts declaring themselves as a force to be reckoned with, even though the identity crisis issue still remains. They kind of sound like the Stones, the Faces, and early Mott the Hoople, or a frenzied combination of the three put together, but that is the worst thing you could say about Warm Slash. Otherwise, this is a tough, hard-hitting affair which is not too flashy, and is a bit of a precursor attitude-wise to the British Heavy Metal bands that came along later in the decade. The first two tracks get right to the point – “Mistreating Woman” and the rather raunchy “(She’s A) Striker” – but after that, the album branches into some interesting avenues, as you could tell TB was looking to break into some more progressive areas on lengthier exercises like “Which Way, When for Why” and the lost-sounding “Sky Balloon”. But the honor of deepest, darkest beast on this puppy by far goes to “Heartbreaker”, which is just dastardly as far as tone goes, as if the band wants to kick your ass, break your heart, and shove you down a hole and bury you at the same time. Not to mention, the picture of them on the cover, with chests exposed, as if ready for a street fight right there and then….Of course, the big mark against this album is the very grumbly tone which drives this thing, and we do not get much variation from it. And don’t think of putting “Ain’t Too Soon” in the happy category – not even close. So, they end up with the mark of sheer competence, in the long run, for this down-and-dirty rum-and-coke kind of album.

Well, at least we know someone had their ears to their ground when over-driven lummox rock like Vanilla Fudge and Sir Lord Baltimore’s Kingdom Come had made the rounds a few years before this monstrous tome was released. All the way from the former West Germany came this lineup of yahoos who were about as far removed from the spacey communal Krautrock scene as possible. One thing I’m really surprised about is, across the board, how much people seem to dig this album. I go the other way – there is something about this experience which makes me nauseous, which is odd, because normally this kind of music is in the ballpark with stuff I normally listen to. But TBS cranks everything to such incredulous levels – especially song lengths – that about the only thing they succeed in doing here is tiring me out. There is a grand total of five tracks here and not one of them runs less than five minutes, but for me, they all seem like they run twice as long. Plus, the lead singer has a thick accent which gives his vocals a rather strange effect that I find annoying. Like if Leslie West had a really bad cold, tried to sing with food stuffed in his mouth, and English was not his first language, either. Nothing here is even remotely close to being original, but then again, these guys just want to rock out, thick and HEAVY – which I do not have a problem with. But when your template is the overwrought metal-meets-organ dirges of Vanilla Fudge, as it is on “These Days”, or the admittedly hilarious but still third-rate over-driven chicanery of Sir Lord Baltimore (“Tiger Rock”, which starts with actual tiger roars), I start to view you with suspicion. It improves somewhat on the next couple of tracks (“Everything I Need”, “To Hell”, which features a rather muddled spoken-word section), but those are obscured by far longer run times and the same issues affecting everything else here – feigned outrageousness and unnecessary repetition. “Tiger Blues” finishes this thing off with another overlong exercise, this one in the blues realm, and then the tiger roar comes on again at the very end. Thank God. And that cover. It’s like Arnold Horshack took too much acid and thought he was a rock star. The 70’s were great for music but horrible for imagery. Avoid.

So, the question is – does it actually suck? I’m not sure. I do know Time to Suck is a really ramshackle, not-give-a-damn affair, and a big part of the reason for that is the surrounding environment it was created in. Apartheid South Africa. Apparently, in the late 60’s and early 70’s, there was a semblance of a psychedelic pop/rock scene there, but because of the prevailing oppressive political climate, Lord knows what happened to the artist who dared defy the accepted norms….From the few things I have read about it, more than likely there just was not any room given to these bands to ply their trade…which is where the brief story of Suck fits in. These guys were together less than a year, had barely any original songs in their set list, but I am guessing their very presence – and name alone – was enough to stir the pot in South Africa at that point and time. The songs collected here are all covers with one exception – an original called “The Whip” – but all of them are delivered with reckless abandon, as if the very point of the album is the band exists to play these songs in the first place, and at the loudest, most ear-splitting volume possible. To give you an indication of where their heads were at – there are two covers from the Grand Funk Closer to Home record (“Aimless Lady” and “Sin’s a Good Man’s Brother”) – and in some respects, they make GFR’s power trio act seem pretty limp, in comparison. But elsewhere, they really do render classier tracks like “21st Century Schizoid Man” and “Season of the Witch” to writhing, bloody pulps, which is mildly interesting, if you are into – you know – turning good music into odd, un-listenable, science experiments which should have been left on the cutting room floor. And so it goes for the rest of the album, although “The Whip” is an admitted curio for me – I do wonder how this crazy bunch of outcasts would have made out under better circumstances, but we will never know. Repackaged editions include a cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs”, which is odd only because of the tribal-sounding drums throughout, and the histrionics of the lead singer. Overall, just some weird stuff, including that questionable album cover.

The band became far more streamlined, losing Youlden and keyboard player Bob Hall, and now were essentially Simmonds and three-fourths of Foghat. Longtime fans of might say this is a recipe for a bad record, but I say the opposite happened. Basically, Simmonds and my man Lonesome Dave Peverett got rid of the faux-soul and psychedelia and brought the back to its’ blues-guitar senses. The end result is fairly reminiscent of a Ten Years’ After album from the same period, but with heavier jazz overtones and quirkier material, since Lonesome Dave wrote the lyrics, I am guessing. Fronted by a slightly scandalous, faux-horror-style, comic book-inspired album cover, tracks like “Poor Girl”, the fully instrumental “Sunday Night”, “Sitting an’ Thinking”, and “Leavin’ Again” weave a dank, moody aura around the listener, much like Simmonds and Peverett with their guitar lines. None of this is exceptional – c’mon, this is Savoy Brown we are talking about – but hard to not to debate that Simmonds and crew found their niche with this stuff. This is a late-night, relaxed, cruise-to-the-blooze record if there ever was one in this world.

The lineup for this album could arguably be considered the quintessential one in Savoy’s career – three/fourths of what would later become the boogie rock juggernaut Foghat, and fronted by fan favorite front man Chris Youlden. But, as always, it contains at least one glaring flaw which cannot be ignored, which we will get to later. Meanwhile, the first half of the album splits the difference between rambling, pub-inspired blues rompers (“Made Up My Mind”), and slow-searing R&B exercises (“Life’s One Act Play”) which the group could pull off credibly, thanks to Youlden. Still, the orchestral touches and horn flourishes makes it all sound a bit stiff. The second half of the album is given over to a live jam, which is nothing but an informal collection of blues covers and others odds-and-ends like “Purple Haze” the group felt like letting loose on. As in, really loose. For hardcore fans only, I would say, as I never get through the whole thing in one sitting. All in all, I have to wonder what Simmonds and the band was stepping into here….