FRONT PAGE REVIEW - MYSTIC SOLDIERS 68 BOSTON PSYCHEDELIA pre ST. STEVEN SLD LP

$

30

FRONT PAGE REVIEW – Mystic Soldiers. Guerssen GUESS 134 LP. Spanish release. FACTORY SEALED VINYL RECORD ALBUM. Originally recorded in 1968, but not released as the band had broken up. First issued by Ace/Big Beat in 1996. This remastered edition issued in 2013. Includes 2 bonus tracks and comes with a photo/liner note insert. MEMBERS:  Steve Cataldo (vocals), Richard Bartlet (guitar), David Weber (drums), David Christiansen (guitar), Thomas Belliveau (bass), and Joseph Santangelo (piano, organ). TRACKS:  Prophecies/Morning Blue, Prism Fawn, One Eyed Minor, Feels Like Love, Silver Children, Valley Of Eyes, Without You, and For The Best Offer. BONUS TRACKS:  What Were You Looking For and I’m Satisfied. DESCRIPTION:  For many first-time listeners of The Front Page Review’s one and only album, Mystic Soldiers, it may seem like just another footnote in the endless ranks of psychedelic laced bands to have come out in the late sixties. Based out of Boston, Front Page Review was signed to MGM Records as part of their Bosstown Sound wave of bands from the late 60s and produced by Alan Lorber, who was the man responsible for signing most of the Boston bands to MGM during this time period. Once you’ve gotten your ears acclimated to their sound let it simmer in your mind for awhile and then go back and listen a little closer because there are some fine aural antics going on in the background of many of these songs. The opening number, Prophecies/Morning Blue is almost downright progressive with its theme of nuclear war, a building fuzz guitar, and a breathtaking tempo shift halfway through and then a Doors-like organ fueled coda. Prism Fawn sounds much like the Who's Relax from the Sell Out album....but once again, the lyrics are fixated on doom. Feels Like Love is a wonderful time capsule of the sixties you could have easily found on the first two Nazz albums. The electric, harpsichord-like keyboards play nicely against the tinny rhythm guitar work. Silver Children, one of the album’s highlights with its HP Lovecraft atmosphere, follows and yields another remarkable shift in tone; we go from happy love to the familiar Doors territory of The End with more of a mystical heaviness. Valley Of Eyes, with a decidedly more urgent tempo, goes from mystical to apocalyptic protest. Without You is more wistful and sad; a nice echo effect is induced onto Cataldo's vocal. The last song to complete the album proper is For The Best Offer, plays like an extended psychedelic dream with its series of different fade-ins and fade-outs and the persistent image of `she's the girl of a streetcorner tree'. Of the bonus tracks, What Were You Looking For features a fine fabulously distorted guitar-workout; I'm Satisfied is an upbeat bluesy number (if such a thing can be said to exist), which by being placed unfortunately after Looking For, ends up sounding more pedestrian than it had probably intended to. In all Front Page Review dish up the kind of psychedelic music you would expect from this time period, but they add a marvelous lyrical twist to many of their songs that sometimes is manifested in occasionally twisted music. Due to MGM’s marketing strategy of spreading out the Bosstown Sound product for maximum exposure time of each release and the glut of material recorded at that time, The Front Page Review album was pushed back for release. With no album to promote, the band had little hope of touring outside the Boston area and broke up before the album’s release. With no band to promote the album, MGM shelved the recordings. Their tragedy aside, Mystic Soldiers deserves to be heard and appreciated by lovers of 60s psychedelia. Steve Cataldo, soon after, recorded as St. Steven issuing one album on the ABC/Probe label. He later formed Nervous Eater during the heyday of punk & new wave as well as providing guitar on some of Willie Alexander’s (The Lost) late 70s recordings. Guitarist Richard Bartlett was later in Brother Fox And The Tar Baby who issued one album on the local Oracle label (later picked up by Capitol Records for national release, along with label mate Jaime Brockett’s album Remember The Wind And The Rain that features the underground classic Legend Of The USS Titanic).   

THIS ITEM IS NEW AND UNPLAYED. Used items will include condition details for the cover, disc, inserts, etc.

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TERMS AND ABBREVIATIONS:

SS or SLD:  Still Sealed or Sealed (or some variation of sealed depending on how many characters I have left in the title line). This item is new and unplayed. Also appears in the listing description as Sealed LP or Factory Sealed LP.

NEW LP:  This item is new and unplayed, but was received from a supplier without being shrink wrapped or cellophane wrapped; more common on imports but also many of the smaller independent US labels do not seal their LPs.

GFC:  Gate fold cover.

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#'D:  Numbered edition. I will include the number of this item if it is visible to me.

CV:  Colored vinyl.

S/T:  Self-titled.

RE:  Reissue

OOP:  Out Of Print.

MIX:  This sometimes appears in my title line and refers to a group's/artist's music having a mix of styles such a rock track with jazz then followed by a straight rock track followed by a psych rock track, etc., as opposed to a blues album with the album's tracks having predominantly one style.

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Buyer pays for POSTAGE & HANDLING:

Shipping rates are as of January 31, 2014; any subsequent rate increase will take precedence over the listed rates.

U.S. Shipping & Payment: 

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