This is an album behind which lies a tragic and unfair story, a story which also shows how greedy and exploitative the music industry is...
Stonewall were one of the many aspiring Hard Rock bands of the 70's. Their manager managed to book them some studio rehearsal time with the prospective of a record contract, having them spent nearly 6 months jamming and recording their debut before being finally told that their material had been rejected by all contacted record companies as not good enough. That made the band dissolve and its members to follow separate ways and even cut any ties with the music industry.
What however Stonewall would only discover more than 40 year later is that it eventually had been a release of their debut without them actually knowing! A record release which, following the practice of many record labels of that time (whoever has watched the Vinyl TV series may be already aware about this "scam"), was intended to be a failure, not sell any albums and be consequently used as a "vehicle" for tax write-off. Outraging and tragic at the same time but indicative of how cynical big corporations are...
In the meantime and for more than 40 years the album had become a record collectors wet dream and (of course) had been bootlegged numerous times until one record collector, who owned a copy of it, approached drummer Anthony Assalti and gave him the shocking news!
When coming to the actual music content of Stonewall's album, this eventually brings us to the obvious question : Was the album really that bad?
Not at all I would say, even by today's standards the album still sounds fresh and not redundant. Dynamic Hard Rock with fuzzy guitars which I am sure that back in 1976 would have blown people brains. Finally, after all these years the album has seen a proper release. If you like 1970's Hard Rock and Proto-Metal please give Stonewall a chance. Even late this will help mend a big injustice...