LIVE MUSIC FROM THE TWILIGHT ZONE

This is a very recommendable album fromy Wigwam, though it contains few quite poor songs. The Wigwam of the early 70's played lots of covers at their live gigs, as I have understood they felt being unable to perform satisfying versions of their own compositions on stage. I guess they had some personal problems concerning these matters, along with possible desires from venue bookers, and all of the core members of the band were doing songwriting, having very different approaches towards this process. The cover version of J.R.Robertson's "The Moon Struck One" is an amazing version with extended jams and nearly remembered lyrics, but then there are also song like "Let it be", "Imagine" and a medley of Sonny Boy Williamson tunes. Sadly I found these as absolute rubbish, and they lower the artistic value of this album and the band as well from my own perspective. The rest of songs are luckily excellent, including "Groundswell", an instrumental track written by the guitarist Pekka Rechardt, powerfully symphonic "Nipistys" by the bass player Pekka Pohjola, and the awesome "Grass for Blades" by Jim Pembroke, reaching the deserved monumental treatment lacked from Jim's solo recording. So it's a good but controversial album, 75% of it being solid gold, and the rest 25% being very poor.