PALADIN

From the band's name one should expect something different than a possible soundtrack for Starsky and Hutch. This is what the first half of "Bad Times" reminds to. It's not so bad when compulsive percussions give to Peter Soley the possibility to place a very good even if very dated organ solo. Shaft meets Wishbone Ash ? Let's see what comes after...

"Carry Me Home" is a country-rock song. Crosby, Stills and Nash with a Lynyrd Skynyrd piano. Nice, everything but original in any case. Have they been at Woodstock, maybe?

A 7 minutes track...something progressive is coming? Well, it's not bad music. I can keep it in my headphones while I'm working...but we are still on the chords of a police movie of the early 70s. A samba tempo on which the electric guitar plays an unoriginal solo. It's like a tribute to Santana that doesn't go anywhere. Just three chords for the guitarist to have fun. Half of the song is so. The second half is a jazzistic drum solo. Ok, this guy can play drums. Is it a mambo now? 3 minutes of Santana like guitar and 3 of drums solo plus a coda.

Samba again with "Third World". A guy speaks of politics over the sound of percussions. An ancestor of Rap. The lyric is about the chronicles of the years to come (in 1971). Interesting as subject. One minute of piano as coda.

"Fill Up Your Heart" is another funky track. Nice but nothing special again. The central instrumental part is one of the most progressive thing of this album.

A surprise..."Flying High" may be a Caravan track. The first British thing on an American album. The choir in the chorus sounds quite hippie, but it's not outplaced. Very, very Caravan.

The closer track "The Fakir" wants to have an oriental flavour as the title says, but it's just repetitive and it lacks of inventive. An attempt to be psychedelic, maybe. An idea that could have been developed better.

In few words, this musicians are skilled, but the album is very immature. It's like they have recorded what they had at the moment. The various tracks don't lead to any place and all I can say is that the band is promising but this is no more than a collection of disconnected promos.

I know from PA that their following albums are good enough, but I would have left this one in the closet of the Bronze label.

Not for sale.