KINGSTON WALL I

This band cannot be ignored when dealing with the history of Finnish prog, as they were very popular and also some kind of pioneers in the early nineties, after the entire extremely anti- prog decade (if you thought prog was a rude word in Britain in the 80's, you should have seen what was it like in Finland!). After releasing a trilogy of albums the band came to a tragic end as their leader Petri Walli committed suicide by jumping down from a church tower (BTW, his biography was released this spring, only in Finnish, of course).

Anyway, this debut is quite single-mindedly considered as their least important album by prog listeners. There's an unquestionable psychedelic vibe especially in the 8-part suite 'Mushrooms', but this music is primarily HARD rock with a breathtaking drive and virtuotic intensity. KW were a power trio of guitarist-vocalist Walli, bassist Jukka Jylli and drummer Sami Kuoppamäki. The guitar style is fierce, descending from Jimi Hendrix and heavy rock legends and soaked in trippy psychedelia, and the rhythm section is equally sharp and powerful.

The world of hard rock - especially the Finnish one - has never been close to me. So it's no surprise that I am left mostly untouched by this album. But I really can't deny the extreme power in it. Approximately after the four earliest tracks, which are fast and rather similar to each other ('Fire' being a Hendrix cover), the psychedelic flavour starts to affect the listener. Nearly 9- minute 'Nepal' is effective, clearly one of the highlights. 'And I Hear You Call' has some Oriental (Turkish/Arabian) kind of melodies at first, like occasionally throughout the album, but hardly as much as the cover art would suggest.

It's the 21-minute 'Mushrooms' suite that crowns this hour-long album. What is perhaps lost in the adrenalin power, is gained in the depth of a proggier, epic-like songwriting. But don't expect too much of it, in fact here and there it feels a bit lost and pointlessly stretched. Speaking of the whole album, if this site was about hard rock instead of prog rock, I might give one star more.