STAND BY

If I could think of an album in the electronic/prog category, that would appeal to non-followers of this world, it will be undoubtly "Stand By", one of Heldon's best works. This one alone travels the routes, that somehow, now are such a novelty. Having listened to a lot of new bands of the after Porcupine Tree (Steven Wilson) era, I went back in my collection to re-listen to this 1979 Heldon project. I was right, this work outlined a lot of what now are considered "new" Prog genres. Outlined and predicted in those early years. Of course there is no sticking to a particular genre, but pre-defining, at least four different ones (neo-prog, post-math, post-metal, heavy-prog and brushing with the Canterburies, eclectics, and Rio/AGs, or simply Hyper/crossover). Now, that all this can happen in a 3 song album that lasts less than 45 minutes, is something to praise and recommend. This was done, of course, without that kind of irrelevant purpose. It has to do more as an outgrowing development in basically Richard Pinhas ( Heldon's headmaster) compositional skills. This record is a consequence of this and it shows it entirely. Mr. Pinhas just the year before released one of his best solo works "Chronolyze" and Heldon's "Interface". He was on a streak of high creativity and "Stand By" by luck (for us), got the best of that. Therefore each song travels simmultaneously a different route, never felt until you are there in the middle of each song, and realize that Heldon's language is covering a lot of spaces, which at the time were non strictly electronic/prog material and now could even be considered new. WOW! ****4.5 near to perfect and way ahead of its own time in the Prog world, PA stars.