THE GROUP

The Group was an obscure finish progressive/jazz rock band from late '70s, but with established musicians in this field. The band released only one album in 1978 self titled and then gone into oblivion under this name, because the musicians involved here minus Olli Ahvenlahti will go to Pekka Pohjola Group. As I said some very solid and skilful musicians here like ex Wigwam, Made In Sweden - Pekka Pohjola who was at the time an already proeminet bass player both under his name or with those bands, drumer Vesa Aaltonen ex-Tasavallan Presidentti another great band from Finland from early 70, guitarist Seppo Tyni from prog/psych Elonkorjuu and keybordist Olli Ahvenlahti from Uni Sono and solo aswell, so in the end a super group. The music featured here, I can't say is groundbreaking but is pleasent, well made. The jazz elements are well combned with the progressive ones, it sounds like a cross between Return To Forever and solo work of Pohjola, even his tradmark elements are not so present here, this is a group efford indeed as the name of the band suggested. The shorter pieces are the most intresting here with maybe Annapurna the longest one, because Ripple marks has some good but in same time some boring moments aswell, the piece to much time going nowhere in musical terms. All in all a decent album, nothing over the top, but fans of the genre might take some spins. 3 stars, maybe in places 3.5.