Nazareth (2) – Razamanaz

Rumour has it that Nazareth were the ing act for Deep Purple on their 1972 tour of Japan, which would explain the similarities on the inside cover photo. I'll be bold and say that the picture was taken on the same night as Deep Purple's Made In Japan front cover picture. You can even recognise the Purple back line behind Nazareth's if you look closely.

You can really tell this is their graduation LP, and the one that made them a big band all over North and Western Europe. It starts with two of their heaviest classics, and the fact that Roger Glover produced it certainly helped putting them at the top among the big, 1970s hardrock bands, alongside Heep in a time when David Byron's drinking made him impossible in Uriah Heep (who never were the same after Return to Fantasy), and Deep Purple lost their singer and their guitarist (twice)...I'm not comparing them with Led Zep, a non-hardrock band, or metal kings Black Sabbath and Judas Priest for obvious reasons. Same with the operatic Queen. The best competition in 1973 came from USA, although I discovered a great UK band only a few years ago, Tucky Buzzard...

As always they made lots of personal renditions of other people's pop and folk songs, like Randy Newman, Leon Russell, Woody Guthrie and Joni Mitchell. The fat years lasted a decade, others might differ. I bought my last Naz LP in 1982.

All I can add to the positive comments listed here is this: 'Razamanaz' for me is like a Nazareth Greatest Hits release: every track is solid, well-written and performed.
In other words, this is one of those rare albums you just can't take the needle off the record once you start playing it!

Albeit the only thing that boggles me is what the f**c does razamanaz mean???

on my copy broken down angel is not mentioned on centre label