Seismic shifts happened between the previous year's Shades Of A Blue Orphanage and 1973's Vagabonds Of The Western World. Frontman Phil Lynott was still documenting working class life in the group's native Dublin, and the band still featured guitarist Eric Bell and drummer Brian Downey, even if Bell was soon to leave; the shift was in the feel of the album. Between Jim Fitzpatrick's lurid album cover which depicted the band in space, the new, hot-rod-like Thin Lizzy logo, and Lynott's newly throaty howl, it's possibly the first Thin Lizzy album on which they truly could be described as a hard rock band. Vagabonds presented a swaggering confidence, a band buoyed by the success of semi-accidental smash hit "Whisky In The Jar," and carved out a moody, dark sound by borrowing bits from the blues, folk, psych, and Celtic music. Check out "Slow Blues" for proof, and decide whether Lynott or the guitars win the wail-off that begins the track.