Paul Roland
Danse Macabre

It wasn't hard to discover the music of Paul Roland. All it took was being twenty, stepping out of the house, and taking a short walk to the old location of Hiroshima Mon Amour in Turin, on December 6, 1987. Of course, it was difficult to expect to find a young Englishman dressed as a Napoleonic officer or something similar, or some kind of gothic version of Sergeant Pepper, with a McCartney-esque dreamy air but a completely different attitude. It took very little time to fall in love with those timeless sounds for a Progressive Rock enthusiast searching for metaphysical connections with punk and psychedelia. And it was quite easy to head to Rock'N'Folk the next day to purchase "Danse Macabre" and dive into a dimension "elsewhere and at that time". On the other hand, the impact with "Witchfinder General" was instantly compelling, with that electric guitar often in the foreground. Then moving on to the psychedelic march of "Madame Guillotine," the fluid dreaminess of "The Great Edwardian Air-Raid," followed by the persistent stride of "The Hanging Judge," the again dreamy "Still Falls the Snow," and the magnificent orgasmic version of "Matilda Mother." You turn the page (ah yes, no CDs back then!) to encounter the hit, "Gabrielle," and wear it out with listens! The journey continues on the tense strings of "Requiem," and the menacing pace of the "Buccaneers." And then it's time to close the eyes in the vague dark fumes of "In the Opium Den," and finally close in style with the r'n'r punk setting of "Twilight of the Gods," and then... start all over again.