TAIPUVA LUOTISUORA

Always I feel Northern-European hard rock has grand activity. Oh well, it doesn't mean at all TAIPUVA LUOTISUORA should be a hard rock outfit...but wait, relax yourself and listen to the first track Kuuvuori, and you may find in their sounds are Finnish flavour of wood, cold as ice but warm as a Finn. Indeed the song has more 'heavily symphonic' elements than psychedelic / space rock ones, and I feel they should have some Scandinavian Metal essence like TNT, a Norwegian HM pioneer (exactly typical stuffs are the first above-mentioned and Kvasikonforminen Äyriäinen I do feel), but they should simultaneously have the Hawkwind-tinged spacey machinegun I'm sure. Namely, we can enjoy on their albums or stage, an amazingly eclectic chandelier with huge amount of starshines in the dark space - let me say we can palpitate with a bulky mixed psychecleavhony(!!!) on the last track Kurki alright? :-)

Furthermore, they cannot overdrive in their works at all - as if every player's body and mind be floating in the space or on the sea, he can relax over shooting his instrumental arrows. (Yup, a quiet and cool but dynamic rock tune like Muting Glow, or an acoustically and gracefully symphonic stream like Imiginally Blizzard be in...) Therefore we can realize their sounds and style are Hawkishly spacey.

Absolutely enthusiastic and metallically fruitful fireworks displayed in our inner 'space' should be in the repetitions with simple phrases - I wanna say BRAVO for TAIPUVA LUOTISUORA and their new terrific treasure from 'cold and warm' Finland.

The more conventional rock songs are accompanied with more eccentrict instrumental songs. From them, "North-East Passage" has groovy rhythms, strong travelling feeling justifying the name, and contains also nice violin. "Uotila" has electronic rhythms kicked in, brilliant details skimmering around quite simple though changing basic composition. This is followed by a track drawing influences most strongly from trance techno music, throwing in really heavy beat (stong laser in Unaja, I agree). Interestingly this was maybe the best track for me here, though I don't like techno. Maybe due this fact this surprised me so positivelly. Great calm ambient moment starts the final insturmental voyage, this is for me the best element on this record, but the heavy riffed main parts don't totally succeed to cathc my own mood. The album ends in feelings slightly resembling the last third record of KINGSTON WALL.

One group which is an association for me is ANEKDOTEN's "A Time of Day" record (released after this album was done). The compared record has more organic sound and approach, and here the heavy side is bit more stronger along with electronic soundscapes, but some harmonies and melodic solutions with the singing sound similar though, and both are quite melodic, minor key rock music, quite close to indie rock, containing cello, and not being very experimental avant prog.

If you like heavy, electronic rhythm music with both spacey elements heavy guitars, this is good album to give a test listen if you would wish to purchase it. So not totally fitting my own taste, I like the live groove of this band much more, but finding pleasant records which open some new perspectives is always great!

The term ''psychedelic, space rock'' does not fully describe the situation in this album. The (indeed progressive) sound clearly borrows elements of electronic and folk music while the atmosphere created by the spacey keyboards and the intelligent use of the violin will definitely catch your attention. At many points throughout the album, the influence from bands like OZRIC TENTACLES is evident but this does not deteriorate the efforts to produce a respectable record. The overall length of the album is relatively short (might be considered as an EP...) but does not affect the quality by all means.

The trilogy of Sopimaton Jalkine is clearly the highlight, blending successfully a melodic acoustic guitar opening, a powerful violin/folk-oriented middle part and an electronic space/chill-out ending that concludes in the best possible way. The few drawbacks of this record refer to some repetitive musical arrangements and parts of unclear structure. Overall, this is a highly promising debut from a band that deserves attention, particularly from the fans of folk/space/psychedelic rock.