Third Stone EP [Psychiatric Hospital]

Colorful designs and fonts often seen in psychedelic music. Sometimes you can guess what the music inside is like just by looking at the cover of an album. Here you can see the name of the band called Third Stone. Then you can be more certain. What kind of music is unfolding in this album? Third Stone, a band that exquisitely combined blues and psychedelic to give great live performances, is back. In the name of the third stone, it is a return after 10 years.

Of course, a lot has happened in 10 years. There was a member change, and the band name was changed to Psychymoon instead of Third Stone. Band leader Park Sang-do also did individual activities in his spare time. However, he did not forget the legacy of the Jimi Hendrix Experience that gave rise to the band The Third Stone. They did not lose their admiration for the blues rock music of the late 1960s, which can only be met by going back a long time, and maintained the most basic form of rock trio. The name "Third Stone" comes from the song 'Third Stone From The Sun' by Jimi Hendrix Experience.

From the beginning, Third Stone did not make music like it is now. If Jimi Hendrix's music was roughly classified as 'blues' and 'psychedelic', the emphasis of Third Stone music was on the blues. If the early Third Stone was obsessed with blues rock, the effect of psychedelic was strongly expressed from the third album [Psychemoon]. Third Stone has become a band that can spread their own psychedelic and dreamy world based on blues rock.

The EP [Psychiatric Hospital], released after 10 years, is an album that the third stone that created a world further expanded that world. It is also an album with a consistent concept, as can be seen from the title of the album 'Mental Hospital'. With the theme of the spirit of modern people living in the present era, modern diseases such as 'Burn Out' and 'Panic Disorder' were made into song titles. This is not a simple concept. It is a world that Park Sang-do, who has experienced lucid dreaming and out-of-body experiences since childhood, wants to express those experiences continuously. Of course, the world is dreamy and hallucinatory as it is experienced.

Park Sang-do (guitar, vocals), Lim Min-ho (bass), and Ahn Seong-ryong (drums), like the rock trios of the past, use intense blues rock and psychedelic sounds with thick textures that are not easily heard now, and Seong Ki-moon (organ) and Helen ( Vocal) further expands the world of hallucinations with their own sounds. Han Doo-soo, who participated as a bassist in the 3rd album and made the sound of Third Stone, participated as a producer in this work and helped the members together with areas that could be missed.

I think we should also talk about the sound itself. Previously, I wrote 'a sound with a thick texture that is not easily heard anymore'. Nowadays, it is difficult to easily hear rock sounds with this texture. It is a result achieved by musicians who firmly know what their goal is and what sound they want to make, and recording, mixing, and mastering engineers who have long careers and allowed them to unfold their intentions. From the concert song 'Astral Projection' that opens the album, the music literally explodes. This exploding sound continues for over 25 minutes. (Kim Hak-sun/Popular music critic)