THE ALCHEMIST

HOME is where the heart is and HOME is where the prog is for this long-forgotten five-piece band from London. They released three albums in the early 1970's:- "Pause for a Hoarse Horse" (1971); "Home" (1972); & "The Alchemist" (1973). The band never managed to achieve the big breakthrough success they so desperately needed, despite being signed to the major CBS record label. A fourth untitled album was recorded but never released and the band packed their bags and went back home in 1974. It's their third and final legendary album "The Alchemist" that was sprinkled with gold dust and contained all of the magical ingredients required to conjure up a classic prog album, so let's give it a spin.

School's Out for Summer, School's Out Forever, or seemingly forever anyway during the stringent coronavirus lockdown of 2020. We're heading back to school now though for "Schooldays", the first song on the album. The band have managed to purify some melodic prog gold with this first tempting nugget of old school prog. This delightful nostalgic tune is a world apart from the "Skool-Dazed" crashing guitar sound of overgrown schoolboy Angus Young of AC/DC fame. No, this charming song is as gentle as the sweet summer air on a Sunday morning with the birds singing and the church bells ringing. The music features the gentlest of guitar melodies combined with a honey-toned singer and with the percussionist firmly establishing his proggy credentials here with a tricky offbeat time signature. "Schooldays" may not necessarily be the best days of our lives, but this pleasurable opening number will conjure up fond 1970's memories of flowers and flares and birds and beads. It's time now to wallow in some more nostalgia for the gently acoustic mournful opening to Song No. 2: "The Old Man Dying", which might sound as peaceful and relaxed as a couple of dozen pensioners on a restful Saga holiday in Torquay, at least to begin with, but there's life in the Old Man yet, as the deceptively quiet opening serves as a prelude for a bunch of party-going Club 18-30 lager louts to come noisily gatecrashing onto the scene with some heavy slammin' electric guitar chords and pounding percussion, before a return back to a Sea of Tranquility for the conclusion. This stunning four-part piece of music also features a surprising classical Bach-style piano interlude for good measure too, but then again, the wondrous worlds of classical music and prog have always been closely intertwined, ably demonstrated by such classical Wizards of the Keys as Rick Wakeman, Jon Lord & Keith Emerson. If piano maestro J. S. Bach were alive today, he could probably earn a good living as a classically-inspired, Prog-Rock keyboard player. A Krautrock trio of Bach-man Turner Uberdrive perhaps? B-b-b-baby, You ain't heard nothing yet! Anyway, moving swiftly on, there's no better way to pass the time than with our third song, "Time Passes By", a short instrumental interlude which sounds as cool and laid-back as Detective Captain Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord) turning up at a murder suspect's address in a Hawaiian shirt and saying, "Book him, Danno, Murder one!", before heading down to Waikiki Beach with a surf board tucked under his arm. Onto Song No. 4 now with "The Old Man Calling (Save the People)", which sounds like a curious combination of off-kilter Canterbury Scene music mixed in with the Southern Rock guitar sound of the Allman Brothers Band, so you can expect the unexpected with this intriguing jazzy piece of music. Who knows what unusual time signature this offbeat tune is played in, but it's definitely not regular 4/4 time. Get ready to hunker down now and prepare for an all-out Sonic Attack for "The Disaster", a crashing discordant dissonance of sounds that hits the listener like a storming salvo of Katyusha rockets. This crazy Bats in the Belfry bedlam is all-fired-up with the maniacal intensity of an open day at a lunatic asylum. It's madder than an albino in a white suit hitch-hiking in a snowstorm. There's a return to some kind of sanity now for "The Sun's Revenge", a two-part piece, opening as an uptempo syncopated Funk-Rock groove about the ravages of time wreaked by the Sun on unprotected skin, which might serve as a timely reminder for us all to slap on some suntan lotion or wear a hat the next time we're out in the summer sunshine. The mellower second part of "The Sun's Revenge" features a moody and magnificent acoustic jamboree of tinkling keyboards and jangling acoustic guitars, which sounds as gentle as a ballerina gracefully extending one slender leg en-pointe behind her, a bit like a dog at a fire hydrant. The music's great, but you may struggle to understand the lyrics in the first part of this song, where the vocabulary sounds as bad as, like, whatever...

We're back in Allman Brothers territory again (in the style of "Jessica" - the Top Gear theme) for "A Secret to Keep", which captures the American Southern Rock sound perfectly, only without the steamy oppressive heat, the alligator infested swamps and the pesky mosquitoes down in the bayou. The singer barely has time to catch his breath in this brief fast-paced number before we're into Song No. 8: "The Brass Band Played". This is a fun piece where the band members sound like they're having a right old knees-up with lots of cheering and clapping in the background as a hearty brass band beats out a typical marching rhythm, as brass bands up and down the land are wont to do. The Salvation Army will be "Coming 'round the Mountain" with a collection plate any time soon. We're in celebratory mood now for "Rejoicing", a Funk Rock groove that's flying high on adrenalin like Tom "Maverick" Cruise lighting up his afterburners with a burst of testosterone in a twin-jet F-14 Tom-Cat. The next song "The Disaster Returns (Devastation)" continues where "The Disaster" of Side One left off, so you can expect more Looney Tunes madness and mayhem to ensue in a non-stop fusillade of machine-gun percussion and lightning- strike electric power chords from the crazy fired-up guitarist. This manic song barrels along relentlessly for eight minutes with all the power of a runaway diesel locomotive thundering down the tracks, but be prepared for a major derailment at the end. Onto the penultimate song now with "The Death of the Alchemist", a suitably haunting and mournful refrain featuring shimmering sound effects in the spooky opening. Hang on a minute though... What's this!?? It's not all doom and gloom as the song emerges like a beautiful butterfly from a chrysalis into a rousing and anthemic prog classic in all of its glorious majesty and magnificence. The Prog Gods will be graciously appeased. The third and final part of this four and a half minute epic features a cascading cacophony with the sound of echoing church bells in the background adding an extra touch of drama to the grand occasion. Time marches on as the tale of "The Alchemist" draws gently to a close now with the title track. This is prog gold! The song opens as a deceptively gentle acoustic Folk-Rock ditty, but this first impression is soon shattered by a storming gale-force blast of heavy keyboard prog in the style of King Crimson and Emerson, Lake & Palmer at their very best. This powerful soaring album highlight reaches Force 9 on the Beaufort Scale and has all of the surging symphonic splendour of "The Court of the Crimson King". In fact, the closing song is as pleasantly surprising and uplifting as walking straight into a supermarket during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, without having to queue for ages outside, and then finding all of the shelves are fully stocked once you get inside the store. Improbable, but not impossible.

"The Alchemist" will make you feel right at Home with this solid helping of pure prog gold, hammered out and fashioned on the anvil of Eclectic Prog. This terrific long-lost album would make a welcome addition to your treasured Prog-Rock collection, but the chances of actually finding this rare album in the record stores are about as remote as winning a medal in a Communist marathon. On your Marx...