PALADIN

"Paladin" is the eponymously titled debut full-length studio album by UK music act Paladin. The album was released through Epic/Bronze Records in 1971. Paladin was formed in 1970 by keyboard player Peter Solley and drummer Keith Webb, who both came from a stint as members of Terry Reid's touring band, who had supported The Rolling Stones on their 1969 American tour.

Stylistically the material on "Paladin" is a highly energetic form of rock drawing influences from jazz/rock, blues rock, progressive rock, and psychedelic rock. Webb is an absolute monster on the drums and his high voltage drumming style drives the music forward with great energy and passion (take a listen to his high energy performance on "Bad Times"), and his performance here is definitely one of the greatest assets of the album. The vocals are decent but nothing out of the ordinary, so it´s mostly the instrumental part of the music which is worth a closer investigation, and Solley´s piano and organ playing is worth more than a couple of mentions. The rest of the band are well playing too.

The album features a well sounding, powerful, and organic toned production job, and it´s a sound production which provides the material with great opportunities to shine. Upon conclusion this is a good quality debut album from Paladin, but the tracks which are a bit more straight forward vers/chorus based rock tracks really aren´t that interesting (tracks like "Carry Me Home" and "Flying High" could be mentioned here) and drag my rating down a bit. Paladin are arguably best when they are full throttle high energy rocking, which fortunately they are on several tracks on the album. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.