THIRD - IT'S ALWAYS ROCK'N'ROLL

Having emerged as France's answer to Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze, Richard Pinhas began his HELDON project in 1974 with his debut "Electronique Guerilla" which found his inspiration of the strange world of experimental electronic music equally matched by the experimental guitar work of Robert Fripp's collaborative efforts with Brian Eno. While the debut was a somewhat of a cult hit and sold quite a few albums, his followup "Allez Téla" stumbled by venturing into unsure footing that incorporated as much psychedelic folk with acoustic guitars as it did enter the twilight zone in the world of progressive electronic inspirations from the German scene.

On his third album, second of 1975, THIRD (IT'S ALWAYS ROCK AND ROLL) found Pinhas engaging in a new lease on life and delivers a whopping double album of avant-garde electronic enchantment. This album follows more in the vein of the debut album and employs the backup support of a new cast of guest musicians. The album's diverse journey into drones, freaky cyclical loops and sonic excursions into the unknown finds Georges Grünblatt offering moments of mellotron and a further expansion into the world o Frippian guitar expansiveness that Fripp began on the "Pussyfooting" album but seemed to abandon as he continued to evolve King Crimson throughout the early 70s.

Patrick Gauthier applies his ARP synthesizer skills and delivers some of the strangest ethereal sounds that the technology was capable of producing. The album also finds a few extra moments that include the Indian Harmonium by Ariel Kalma on the track "Aurore" which also features wordless vocal contributions by a vocalist named Aurore. While the title of the album may seem misleading for a predominantly experimental electronic album, the spirit of good old fashioned ROCK AND ROLL does shine through particularly on the track "Zind Destruction" which offers the combo effect of a bluesy rock guitar dominance in conjunct with rock drumming in cahoots with all the electronic backing for the proper lysergic effects.

The album begins with the primarily electronic track "ICS Machniqaue" which announces that PInhas is back on track with the freaky electronic soundscapes that put him on the map in the first place but immediately the album also showcases a sense of rhythmic flow and plucky altered melodic touches that give the track a sense of purpose yet remain firmly outside of the established norm. The second track "Cotes de cachalot à la psylocybine" introduces a more darkened approach with deep keyboard grooves accompanied by the now established Frippian guitar moves that had become a staple of the HELDON sound. As the track oozes on and hypnotizes you into a pure pacification, the guitar continues to offer subdued licks under the mix while subtle electronic pitches offer an undertone that keeps the track from sounding monotonous in terms of the electronic aspects.

While the shortest tracks "Méchamment rock" and "Ocean Boogi" don't deliver the intensity of the rest of the album due to the fact they simply sound as if they're just coasting on autopilot, other like "Cocaine Blues" offering exhilarating electronic wizardry where layers of cyclical loops pile on top of each other and mesmerize the senses for a near 10 minute run. Both the tracks "Aurore" and "Doctor Bloodmoney" originally swallowed up entire sides each of the original vinyl pressing with both nearing the 17 minute playing time and beyond. "Aurore" features a sprawling drone with incrementally changing electronic patterns that offer subtle variations while the closing "Doctor Bloodmoney" showcases a more hyperactive side of HELDON with frenetic keyboard loops drifting on in perpetuity with a preponderance of varying elements that spice it up along the way. The track ends with a powerful drumming performance that puts the ROCK AND ROLL back into the album thus somewhat justifying the choice of the album title.

Before the grand finale though "Virgin Swedish Blues" offers some cleaner guitar moments and results in a nice interlude that escapes the freakazoid electronic bizarro show and crafts a melodic orchestrated effect with the clean guitar tones arpeggiated and accompanied by a bass guitar that offers a taste of traditional musical delivery with discernible and easy to digest melodic touches. The biggest highlight surely has to be the intrepid excursion into rock guitar on "Zind Destruction" which resurrects the heavy psych moments of Pinhas' early years under the name Schizo and showcases extremely echoey guitar chords accompanied by a second guitarist that mixes the Frippian influences with a more blues based melodic construct. As the album closes with the final drum soloing sequence on the extra trippy electronic piling up of intensity, the album ends in an irreverent state of resolution.

It took me a while to warm up to this third HELDON album since a double album's worth of this outsider weirdo electronica indeed requires a commitment to invest into the interpretation of the artist's intent but there are no rules that say you have to digest all of this eclectic madness in one sitting after all. This is the type of music you have to be in the mood for first of all and really it's all about chilling out and simply going along for the ride and appreciate sprawling electronically infused soundscapes that require the proper amount of incremental repetition to build certain effects. Although the album delivered some of the most cutting edge progressive electronic sounds to be heard in 1975, Pinhas' inclusion of the guitar and occasional percussive moments seem to spice it all up in a way that keeps it from spiraling out into the cosmos. This album has grown on me substantially and when i'm in the right mood totally hits the spot.

HELDON would continue to evolve his sound until his fan favorite finale "Stand By' which took everything to an entirely new level but for one of his earlier albums that was still finding Pinhas fine-tuning his craft, THIRD (IT'S ALWAYS ROCK AND ROLL) delivered a fascinating blend of the progressive electronic exoticness that HELDON debuted on "Electronique Guerrilla" and took it to the next level. Sure i could live without the two shorter tracks and in all honesty the longest tracks "Aurore" and "Doctor Bloodmoney" didn't need to be as long as taking up an entire side of vinyl but overall this is a very satisfying album that delivers what it sets out to accomplish that being a wild ride excursion into the ethereal world of HELDON's darkest electronic playground which offers an oddball mix of moments of transcendental meditation and reviving the world of rock music scattered throughout. All in all, this is a really cool album that took me longer than normal to appreciate but it finally won me over.