Near the top of our pantheon of instrumental psych-funk mystics—where the dust of Fela mingles with the incense of Ennio Morricone and the heavy fog of Sabbath—hovers The Budos Band. And from that smoked-out perch, they descend once more with V, or rather Vii, their seventh full-length studio conjuring and perhaps their most cinematic, thunderous dispatch yet. For those of us who first fell under their spell via the molasses-thick grooves of “Up From the South” or the molten brass of “T.I.B.W.F.”, Vii feels like a haunted homecoming, an album steeped in the eerie swagger and scorched-earth funk that made them cult darlings in the first place—but now darker, sharper, and strangely more apocalyptic.
If earlier Budos records were the sound of a bar brawl in an Istanbul spy flick, Vii plays more like a mythic road movie set in a desert of ash and shadow, where the fuel is fire and the tires screech to the tune of fuzzed-out guitar. Nowhere is that more evident than on “Overlander,” a desert-drifting epic that opens with a slow burn—bass thrum like distant thunder, drums dragging chains—and then, as if summoned by an ancient rite, the horn section bursts forth like vultures circling over an outlaw’s last stand. It’s transportive, grimy, heroic. You can almost see the protagonist, poncho-draped and bloodied, staggering into the blaze of some unknowable reckoning.
But if “Overlander” is the slow dance of doom, “Escape from Ptenoda City” is the high-speed chase through its crumbling outskirts. All sinew and smoke, it gallops on a leaner, meaner riff than the Budos typically wield, like Goblin jamming with Black Flag in the engine room of a runaway train. It’s frantic, precise, and—maybe most importantly—fun, in that adrenaline-sick way that only true chaos can be.
Vii doesn’t reinvent The Budos Band so much as weaponize their aesthetic, distilling over two decades of groove-laden heaviness into a lean, lethal statement. There’s no filler, no retreat. Only forward motion through a land scorched by funk, psychedelic menace, and the occult grammar of groove. It’s Budos at their most distilled and devilish.
For those of us between 25 and 40 who grew up worshipping at the altar of analog grit—who lived through the great Daptone bloom and held Burnt Offering close like a secret talisman—Vii feels less like a new chapter and more like the long-awaited culmination of a prophecy first scrawled in some forgotten liner notes. This isn’t retro. It’s ritual. Get in, loser. We’re escaping Ptenoda City, and the soundtrack is pure fire.
Preorder the Budos Band VII LP here.
