Lucifer's Friend are a German rock band, formed in Hamburg in 1970 by guitarist Peter Hesslein, singer John Lawton, bassist Dieter Horns, keyboardist Peter Hecht, and drummer Joachim Reitenbach. The group were noted as early practitioners of heavy metal and progressive rock, they also incorporated elements of jazz into their music, specially in their fourth album Banquet of 1974. Furthermore heavy metal, the band have been cited too as one of the pioneers of doom metal, helping to define both genres due to their heavy sound and dark oriented lyrics of their acclaimed debut Lucifer's Friend of 1970, and returning to their roots in 1981 with Mean Machine, although more influenced by speed metal.