THE KNIGHT'S FLIGHT

The third Stalemate Factor album is The Knight's Flight and it is unabashed psychedelic rock, from a most unexpected source - a Malaysian band full of journalists.

The album is very influenced by the trippy music of the late 1960. Obviously there the The Beatles's Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and less obviously Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother and Traffic's self-title albums are influences.

While the previous album was hard rock and the next album is more directly progressive, this one stands out for the way it pays homage to the sixties!

Lyrically there is a fair amount of exploration of hedonism, enlightenment, daily realities and the good and bad of hallucinogenic drugs. The core band is Martin Vengadesan on vocals/keyboards, NR Lohan on electric guitar/vocals, Edward Gomez on bass/vocals and Andrew Sagayam on drums, the latter being replaced by producer Ashwin Gobinath on half the tracks.

Highlights are many and they include yeh opener The Doors Of Perception (Lost Weekend) which depicts the chaotic beginning of a psychedelic trip with a lot of surreal detours.

There are massed vocal harmonies and a blistering organ solo to round things off.

There's also the electric piano/Moog combo of Groggy Doggy and a bunch of other Beatles-influenced tracks like Shanny On A Sunday Morning, A Cafe in TTDI Park and Fragrant Hills, which adds Chinese and Indian influences.

There is Crystal Meth & The One-Eyed Man with an incendiary guitar solo from Lohan over the massed chorus and Firewater Blues which touches on the impact of alcohol on Native American populations.

Your Runaway Mind (Syd Barrett, Peter Green & Me) is the longest track on the album and my personal favourite. It has a number of sub-sections and is a tribute to the men who were at the heart of the early success of Pink Floyd and Fleetwood Mac respectively but had very high-profile drug-related breakdowns and left their groups ? and the world - behind. This song has classic keyboard moments like a rollicking Moog solo and mellotron overload towards the end. And that's alongside harpsichord, piano and organ, as well as a lyrical guitar solo and great melodic bass work.

Another song A Thousand Moons has some stellar performances from backing vocalist Joanne Timbuong, Carnatic flute from Sridhar and violin by Karolina Sustova.

Scream In Pleasure is a grinding psychedelic blues stomper, with a mid section organ solo that is graced by a percussion orchestra from Balamurugan, while Opium Den is another rollicking trippy psych tune. Finally Grass Cutter Jam is an excursion into a little psychedelic jazz, and ? To The Carmine Sea is a beautiful folk song that turns into a twin lead guitar extravaganza that would make Wishbone Ash proud.

Not the most progressive album by The Stalemate Factor, but quite possibly it's best.

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