VAGABONDS OF THE WESTERN WORLD is not only the last record that Thin Lizzy recorded as a trio, but an album that signaled the band's adoption of a more hard-rock sound and an abandonment of its prior harder-edged prog-rock approach. VAGABONDS also contained Thin Lizzy's breakthrough hit, a modern update of the traditional folk song "Whisky in the Jar."

Once again turning to his Irish heritage, Phil Lynott reaches into Celtic mythology to create a wayfaring fictional character who traverses through a mystical world, a character who appears in the Hendrixian title track, and in the moody "Hero and the Madman." On the later, Lynott's spoken-word intro sounds not unlike something Jim Morrison might have written. When Lynott isn't relying upon magical beings for inspiration, his songs speak from the perspective of the perpetual outsider. Throughout the album, the band demonstrates its mastery of the blues ("Slow Blues," "Broken Dreams"), folk ("A Song For While I'm Away"), waltzes ("Randolph's Tango"), and Faces-like boogie ("Mama Nature Said.") The guitar-driven "Whisky in the Jar" may have been the album's hit, but "The Rocker," an anthem that became a precursor to the later success of JAILBREAK, is as hard-hitting as it gets.