Photo by Justin Borucki
On 2010’s The Budos Band III, the Budos Band played its real hand. Yes, the musicians are well-versed in Afrobeat, funk, and soul, but they also grew up loving heavy metal. III mixed in some Black Sabbath with the Fela Kuti rhythms in a really inventive way, and for album number four, the Budos Band heads further down that rabbit hole. From the album cover on down, Burnt Offering pays homage to the kind of psychedelic metal you can find in the dollar bin of your local record store. The guitars are distorted and the mix is swampy, but the beats are still danceable, and “Burnt Offering” itself sounds like a soul song from hell. Only the polymaths in the Budos Band could pull off something this demented and fun.
