PARADISE NOW

Coming out of the Netherlands just in time for the Brit-inspired Nederbeat of contemporaries Golden Earring, once ready to release, Group 1850 had already bounded for Space. Releasing their debut in 1968, the world already well-steeped in Psychedelia, this is how we first know them. One of those things where, seeing they had a career plenty before this musical seismic shift, I'm very curious what they sounded like in their earliest years.

Our title track, "Paradise Now", is an incredibly strong opener. A slow but powerful build of spacy organ and buzzing electric guitar, all over a solid bass-heavy beat. In my previous ignorance, I wanted to open with this, but I feel this is a well aware worldliness in their approach to Psych and Space Rock, taking from their European counterparts, but also from the Bay Area hippies on the other side of the world. Continuing on boldly, we have "Friday I'm Free", a simple, quickly-over Space Rock jam. It's a bit reminiscent, as I've seen noted elsewhere, to early Pink Floyd.

"Hunger" is an awesome psychedelic statement(!!!), with reverberating guitar and near-monotone group vocals, again not entirely unfamiliar to fans of Floyd. I'm struggling at the current moment to identify other groups that this sounds like. Glancing at Spotify's "Fans also like" can be illuminating, and here our Group 1850 is moreso like Clear Light, Twink, Mighty Baby (the very little I know of them) and Arzachel than they are Blossom Toes or Kaleidoscope (the Kaleidoscope I don't know as well haha). Up next is the minute-long jam, "Circle". Blink, and you'll very well miss it as I nearly did haha. It warms us up nicely in preparation for the next, "Loneliness", in comparison, a far more chill number, taking notes from the Ragas of the East. All the same, I feel they've produced an album of consistency up to this point. As I say this, our Eastern sonics continue in a peaceful... triumph(?) on "Martin & Peter", complete with hand-drums and sweet yet harsh fluting (of some sort).

Sharing in the slow crescendos and warm jams of their Krautrock contemporaries, as I find this comparison most appropriate here, "?!" builds softly upon itself. No excess here. Just chill vibes and more, lightly evocative East-spiration. Guitar builds on occasion only to die back down into the whole. Frankly, the weakest of the bunch to my ears, yet it did have some good ideas. Finally, we have the 11-minute long "Purple Sky". This jam is more inspired by the Blues at first, sharing in sonic choices to even Led Zeppelin or Deep Purple. This track slips deeper and deeper into the dream, away from bluesy familiarity and eventually, in its middle, into a wild tom-heavy drum solo. The focus of this solo shifts then to almost entirely cymbals. Just a genuinely interesting approach, and I can definitely appreciate it in that. Apparently back-masked vocals sound the return to our bluesy start. Cool closer, for sure.

A fantastic Euro-Psych album, for those trying to look without. I look forward to what comes next... Polyandri, their third and final album, was released just over a half a decade later. I'd call that a different musical landscape altogether haha. We shall see.

A barely rounded-up True Rate of 3.5/5.0.