John Bassett's King Bathmat project has seen the artist flirt with pop and rock music but what has always remained constant is his clear liking for progressive rock. So it shouldn't be a great surprise to learn that his third long player in three years could be viewed as a concept album. The songs are based on characters stories' in an unspecified town; although with subject matters of drug takers, loneliness and alcoholism there's certainly a wide range of places to pick from. Unusually, the mood is fairly upbeat. A song called 'Rejection', for example, is bursting with psychedelic melody and big production values. 'Sweet Iris' is flowery and folky and suits Bassett's usually gruff tones surprisingly well. However, once a prog-rocker, always a prog-rocker, Bassett delivers a ten-minute finale which seems to be several movements in one and it actually hangs together surprisingly well; much more so than a few of the other tracks which appear to divert into unnecessary guitar solos. This is easily Bassett's most ambitious recording so far but it's not necessarily the easiest to love.