Album of the day: Highway Robbery – For Love Or Money (Vinyl)

Praise for Highway Robbery‘s For Love Or Money from San Francisco’s aQuarius Records: Hot damn. This is the definition of kick ass, pretty much. At least as that term applies to early ’70s proto-metal, which so often it does most fittingly. We’ve had this before on CD, out of print now we think, so all the better that there’s now a newly reissued vinyl version available. We figure most everyone who recently acquired a copy of another aQ proto-metal fave, Jerusalem, for their turntable will want this as well. Here’s an adaptation of what we had to say about this unsung classic before, when we first listed it on CD…

Highway Robbery are an obscure early ’70s American power trio that we’d never heard of until a bootleg CD crossed our path some time ago. Intrigued by the cover photo of three long-haired stoner dudes, we checked it out (hoping for something akin to Sabbath or Budgie but perfectly aware that we were more likely to discover something more like unsuccessful Grand Funk wannabes). Lo! Highway Robbery turned out to be bona fide heavy-hitters, playing turbocharged proto-metal in the Led Zep vein, with moments indeed recalling Sabbath, and the Who. Huzzah!

Double huzzah, that this, their only album (originally released by Capitol in 1973) has now been reissued, and we can share our discovery on wax with the lucky patrons of Aquarius. It’s almost all super heavy and rockin, despite some obligatory pop efforts on here (made by all not-yet-metal hard rockers of the era, and in this case misguided, considering their strengths, but not bad). They’ve got the look, they’ve got the fuzz, they’ve got a singing drummer, what more do you want?! Fans of current or vintage “stoner rock” should jump on this. Wow, it’s always nice to find that there’s stuff out there remaining to surprise us.

So yeah, anyone into Jerusalem, Bang, Dust, Sir Lord Baltimore, etc. you need to check out Highway Robbery right away if you haven’t already. Hot damn, kick ass, like we said at the top.

At 40 years old, Aquarius is the oldest independent record store in San Francisco. We try to only carry music we love, and we’re always searching for more new, cool, weird and wonderful music. All of which we then share with you, our loyal customers.

Tags: Album of the day, Aquarius Records, For Love Or Money, heavy 70's, Highway Robbery, proto-metal, RCA

This entry was posted on Monday, November 7th, 2011 at 6:16 pm and is filed under 2011, Album of the Day, Roadburn Recommended . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.