THE STALLION "The Dark Side Of The Wall" (3xLP)

All hail the debut release from The Stallion! The Stallion is Ben Wallers and Alastair Mackinven of the Country Teasers. For two years they labored at the legendary Hit Factory recording studios in London as their schedule allowed. The project at hand was their long-planned / often-threatened The Dark Side Of The Wall—a song for song interpretation of Pink Floyd’s 1979 album The Wall. At long last In The Red is proud to unveil the results. It should surprise no one familiar with Ben Wallers’s work or record collection that he would choose this particular album to honor. The Wall’s influence has been noticeable in his music before (see “Spiderman In The Flesh” from the Country Teasers’ Empire Strikes Back album). The man likes his Floyd—he even rates The Final Cut as “brilliant”. It should also surprise no one that Roger Waters’s compositions from The Wall take a morbid and twisted turn in the hands of Wallers and Mackinven. What was already a fairly dark and bleak piece of work becomes much darker and bleaker here. It’s also longer. Pink Floyd’s original contained 26 songs spread across four sides of long playing vinyl which, by comparison, was the same number of tracks as Pink Floyd’s four previous studio albums combined. The Stallion’s take on these same 26 selections spans six sides of vinyl. Mackinven says, “it’s longer so it’s better, right?” This is a beautiful piece of work both aurally and aesthetically. Packaged in a gorgeous heavy duty double gatefold, this limited edition triple-vinyl package won’t be around long. (In The Red)