BEYOND EXPRESSION

Finch evokes very pleasant adolescent memories. I had a kind of competition with one of my best friends: "Who will discover the best prog?". In general it was me because of my fanatic attitude, close to compulsive behavior. One day he came with the LP "Beyond expression" from Finch and I was so jealous because this album could compete with the best from other Dutch masters like Focus, Trace, Earth & Fire, Ekseption and Kayak ! But what a fine coincidence that many years later, when I worked for several progrock magazines, I was invited to write the linner notes for Finch their 2-CD "The making of galleons of passion../Stage 76". As an adolescent the Finch musicians were my heroes and 20 years later I was allowed to do interviews with them in order to write a histroy of the band, A VERY EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE! Finch has always played in the shadow of the more famous Dutch progbands Focus, Ekseption. Earth & Fire and Trace. But they were excellent musicians who created an own sound on their best album "Beyond expression". The longest suite "A passion condensed" starts bombastic with a fiery electric guitar, delicate piano and a soaring string-ensemble. It slows down and after a short bass-run the focus is on the excellent guitarplay of Joop van Nimwegen (famous Focus guitarplayer Jan Akkerman called him a great talent when he saw him on a German festival!). The music contains lots of changes in movement and climate with a strong and adventurous rhythm-section (with Chris Squire inspired bass play) and tasteful keyboards (fine solos on the ARP synthesizer and Hammond organ). Halfway a twanging electric guitar starts to blend with a Wurlitzer electric piano, a beautiful combination. Suddenly the electric guitar speeds up the rhythm to culminate in an exciting solo with lots of biting runs. Then again twanging electric guitar and electric piano, joined by another exciting electric guitar solo with inventive keyboards (organ, strings, piano). The music continues with a swinging rhythm, flights on the synthsizer and a phaser-drenched electric guitar. After a short piano break a sensational duel between a flashy synthesizer and a biting electric guitar follows. The music continues with a swinging rythm to end with a bombastic grand finale containing beautiful strings, a powerful electric guitar and a propulsive rhythm-section. Technically this music can compete with the other, more famous bands but commercially it didn't reach that sales to make a breakthrough to a wider audience, unfortunately. THIS IS A DUTCH PROGROCK CLASSIC!!