Paul Roland "Masque" (Greek ed. Di Di Music) 1990🎃🎃🎃🎃

Halloween tonight, and there are a number of ways for someone to celebrate it: trick-or-treating obviously, or partying with friends in your Halloween costumes. At the very least one can sit home watching a horror movie: John Carpenter's Halloween maybe, or Friday The 13th. On occasion I've also posted reviews on Halloween-inspired albums like The Fuzztones' Monster A Go Go. If, however, you're less attracted to the camp side of the holiday, if you'd rather re-read Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley or Edgar Allan Poe instead of binge-watching The Walking Dead, Paul Roland might make for a more fitting Halloween musical accompaniment for you.

"Jack O' The Lantern and Will O' The Wisp/ The Devil's Legion rides out in the mist" - now isn't that an appropriate way to start my Halloween album review? These also happen to be the opening verses from Paul Roland's Masque LP. The song, "Dr Syn Is Riding Again", is a hard rock piece with a wild violin solo, and its subject is an 18th century smuggler known as "The Scarecrow". Pretty standard fare for Roland, whom Wikipedia describes as a "singer-songwriter, author, journalist and paranormal researcher". A veritable Renaissance man, one obsessed with the past and with stories of the occult and the macabre. As a musician, he's responsible for more than 30 albums, bringing to life a host of amazing characters: deviant artists, medieval knights, jesters and whores, Victorian murderers and alchemists, vampires, mad scientists, street urchins etc. His music is invariably described as psychedelic, neofolk, goth, progressive, you name it. In truth, although there are similarities to Syd Barrett, Donovan, Robyn Hitchcock, Marc Bolan and others, he's impossible to pigeonhole. His music is just the medium through which he delivers his stories. It's often semi-acoustic with some kind of orchestral backing, but I've also seen him play with a heavy rock band, and I've seen him accompanied only by a lady with a flute (on a beach festival at 2 in the morning, sandwiched between The Last Drive and garage rockers The Droogs). Masque followed on the heels of his hardest-rocking album, the Medieval-themed Duel, and presents us with a mixture of electric and acoustic stylings. There are upbeat rockers with loud drums, e.g. "Dr. Syn", "Mr Scratch" (in the words of Mr Scratch, a.k.a. Mephistopheles: "A fair exchange is no crime/What's a soul my friend for the guarantee of a hell of a time?") and "The Mind Of William Gaines". I always thought the latter (about scientists re-animating an abnormal brain to study its workings) was about a notorious murderer, but it turns out I had him confused with Ed Gein. William Gaines was just an editor of horror comics. It still has a very Halloween-ish, Hammer-horror type, vibe. But while the electric guitars and drums are present throughout the album, they mostly take a back seat to the violin and other strings, with a couple of songs ("Taxidermist", "Mr. Scratch") also featuring sax solos. "Pharaoh" (sung from the perspective of an ancient Egyptian royal mummy) is a slow Gothic tune with an oriental flute melody, while "Candy Says" is a catchy song about a child receding into her inner fantasy world and imaginary friends. "Triumphs Of A Taxidermist" is sung from the perspective of a serial killer who enjoys embalming and collecting victims (my favorite is the "salesman to whom I couldn't say no"). Grisly murder stories accompanied by tranquil violin melodies are after all a Roland specialty. "Grantchester Fields" paints an idyllic picture of the English countryside with, for once, no horrible implications (the "ghosts of summers past" are surely a figure of speech). Side 2 opens with "Masque", a melancholic piano ballad about an actor losing himself in the characters he portrays, while the slow orchestral "Cocoon" is about a scientific experiment gone awry, and "I Dreamt I Stood Upon The Scaffold" is a variation on the traditional Childs ballad "Gallows Pole", which was also covered by Led Zeppelin... only here, when the dreamer wakes from his nightmare, he finds himself in a prison cell with a priest and executioner standing above him. "Matty Groves" is another Childs ballad, mostly known from the Fairport Convention version although I first heard it here. And though Roland's voice can't compare to Sandy Denny's (few can, really), he paces the song well, and sings with the panache of a true storyteller: when I listen to him, I can feel Lord Donald's wrath before slaying his wife and her lover. The album then closes with a nice Celtic jig, appended to the end of "Matty Groves". That is, if you don't have the Greek edition of the album which adds a bonus EP with 4 more songs: "The Ratcatcher`s Daughter" is orchestral pop, probably inspired by the same-named 19th Century music hall number. "Sea Captain" is a nostalgic portrait of an old sea dog, the upbeat "Sporting Life" of a gambler and scoundrel, and "Baby Let's Play House" an unexpected Elvis Presley cover. The first 3 songs were later added to the album CD reissue, otherwise I'd urge you to seek this particular edition of the album - the bonus EP is that good.

***** for Candy Says, Matty Groves, The Sea Captain

**** for Dr Syn Is Riding Again, Pharaoh, Triumphs Of A Taxidermist, Grantchester Fields, Masque, The Mind Of William Gaines, I Dreamt I Stood Upon The Scaffold, The Ratcatcher`s Daughter, The Sporting Life  

*** for Meet Mr Scratch, Cocoon, Baby Let's Play House

Paul Roland "House Of Dark Shadows" 1985 (LP comp) 1991 (expanded CD reissue)*****

Ask any musician for his influences and you'll get answers like The Beatles, David Bowie or John Lee Hooker. Paul Roland, I suspect, would come up with names like Edgar Allan Poe, HP Lovecraft, Jules Verne or Robert Louis Stevenson. His songs are steeped in mystery and gothic horror tales and populated by Victorian villains and adventurers. Often pegged as folk or neo-psychedelia, his music is sui generis: Sure, there's a strong 60's aura and echoes of Donovan, Roy Harper and Syd Barrett but also elements of Gothic, Progressive, New Wave, New Age and even Garage or Hard Rock. On stage they're mostly performed in a stripped-down acoustic manner without losing any of their ambience but studio versions may feature woodwind and string arrangements or electric guitars and loud drums. In the end it probably depends on the musicians accompanying him or the available budget but, regardless the packaging, it's the vocals and lyrics that manage to transport you to Roland's fantasy world. Each song is a visual mini-story ready to be painted on a canvas or expanded into a novel or a B-movie. Not surprising, since Roland is also renowned as a writer, having written a staggering 40 books on the subject of mysticism, crime and the occult - something I only found out when I checked his wikipedia page earlier today. Funnily enough my girlfriend, who wrote her PhD thesis on criminal profiling, only knew him from his true crime books but was unaware of his musical career.

"House Of Dark Shadows" collects early EP tracks and portions of his rare Werewolf of London (1980) and Burnt Orchids (1985) albums. As overview of Roland's work it's since been surpassed by other, more extensive, compilations but it remains a great collection of songs and makes for a good introduction to his style which hasn't changed much in the last 25 years. "Blades Of Battenburg" opens the album with some ominous organ, before setting in a classic rock sound, with a harpsichord solo for period effect. The lyrics are a typical example of Roland's style of verse: "Through the iron gates a carriage rolls/To the house, a mansion old/We are the blades of Battenburg/Downstairs our whispers are faintly heard...The halls are white, their shroud is cold/The vaults are sealed, their tales untold/Beneath a portrait of a brave young man/An old woman still in her bridal gown". "Burnt Orchids" is a dreamy acid folk ballad with orchestral backing while "Werewolves Of London" (no relation to the same-named Warren Zevon song) is a horror rocker with dramatic strings and saxophone set in  Victorian London. "Lon Chaney" is his tribute to the mysterious star of the silent movies who became known as the man with a thousand faces. He'd probably make the ideal interpreter for Roland's gallery of rogues presented in the next songs: "Dr. Strange", "The Puppet Master" and "Captain Blood". "Death Or Glory" is an anti-war new wave rocker and "Cairo" is an acoustic folk song with a suitably snaky Arabic melody which paints a romanticized picture of a decadent Oriental metropolis in the 1920's. "Green Glass Violins" is an orchestral ballad while "Flying Ace" is closer to country. "Ghost Ships" is an atmospheric song with...ghostly keyboards which reads like a poem by Edgar Allan Poe: "Looming through the fog glides the Ghost ship/ Rotting from crows nest to keel/ Not a soul was seen to steer her/Save a corpse lashed to the wheel". "Madelaine" is another of his eccentric characters ("as each year grows older, she grows more quietly insane"), brought to life with the help of a string quartet and kindred spirit Robyn Hitchcock. My CD version of the album is a 1991 reissue on the French New Rose label, containing extra tracks "Berlin" (an acoustic ballad praising the liberal and cosmopolitan air of that city in the 20's), live radio versions of the country-ish "Graveyard Train" and "Public Enemy", covers of Marc Bolan's "Hot George" and Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue Got Married" and the bluesy "Jack Daniels". Like I said earlier, Paul Roland is one of a kind and his songs open a door into his fairytale world. Step right in...

***** for Blades Of Battenburg, Burnt Orchids, Werewolves Of London, Cairo, Madelaine, Berlin

**** for Lon Chaney, The Puppet Master, Captain Blood, Death Or Glory, Green Glass Violins, Flying Ace Ghost Ships, Graveyard Train

*** for Dr. Strange, Public Enemy, Hot George, Peggy Sue Got Married

** for Jack Daniels