HAIKARA

This album is so far the best classic Finnish progressive rock release I have yet heard, along with the "Fairyport" by Wigwam and Tasavallan Presidentti's early records. As the songs on the album are sung in Finnish, it may not be as accessible as the other classic Finnish prog albums for a non-Finnish speaking listener, but it has also many fine instrumental passages, where the singing is left in lesser importance.

I wasn't upset about the opener "Köyhän Pojan Kerjäys" (The Begging of A Poor Boy), which some of the listeners seem to find a bit irritating tune. I think that this number holds the qualities of burlesque humor, and it creates as slight theme to the following songs. This song is built from elements of early 60's Finish popular music, which is a logical choice within the context of the lyrics, as they paint a picture of a poor common man, whose frightful visions of the world the following four compositions in my opinion are. In the end of the song we can also hear quotations of Finnish army marches and even some slight taunts to the navy soldiers, these most likely being contributions of Harri Pystynen, who had studied and played winds at the Finnish army orchestra [according Esko Lehtonen "Suomalaisen rockin tietosanakirja", Soundi 1983.].

"Luoja Kutsuu" (The Lord Calls You) begins the series of eight to eleven minutes long songs, which bring forth strong visions of our world. The soothing lullaby flute & cello melodies are guided to a sadder direction by the church bells, and a submissive funeral march begins. Later the evil tritone steps familiar from darker classical music bring a strong violent twist to the music, and the singer announces his bitter hate towards organized Christianity and the leaders of the world. This dystopia vision associated with a more coherent stuff by Van Der Graaf Generator for me, their "Godbluff" album to be more exact. The power of both the lyrics and the music are tremendous. "Yksi Maa & Yksi Kansa" (One Land & One Nation) opens with tender guitar licks resembling the style of Jukka Tolonen, and euphoric strings introduce the mellow part of this song, which lyrics and theme is similar to John Lennon's "Imagine". Very beautiful stuff, but sadly this kind of predictions of peace and love can be ruined by watching the evening news. The middle part has more a faster guitar and sax driven rock sequence sounding like Tasavallan Presidentti. There are also passages with Latin influenced horn arrangements.

"Jälleen on Meidän" (It's Ours Again) starts with fabulous treble bass licks, and the song has an interesting groove. The lyrics are very poetic, and there are sharp trumpets bringing a jazzy feeling, which later evolves as dominant characteristic of this song, embodied as long instrumental jazz motives. Mystic "Manala" (Netherworld) closes the album, and it's verse reminds me the King Crimson song "The Letters". There are long quiet themes escalating to a furious ending, which is very powerful, as the last sounds are two changing guitar chords, which share a same base chord beneath them, bringing an abstract promise of hope to linger in the soon emerging silence.

I recall listening to this album when I was quite new to art rock music, and as I then listened to more conventional stuff like Yes and Wigwam, this record sounded somehow disturbing and too difficult to digest. During the years my tastes evolved, and now I value this masterpiece maybe more than any of the albums by these two bands. I seriously recommend this record to all people who are interested of dark, moody and artistic music. This LP was a very rare collectors item for some time, as there weren't any reissues of it moving around: Most of the Finnish prog albums of the 1970's were released by the Love Records label, and they had bigger pressing numbers and marketing, plus their releases were also reissued in early 1990's, unlike this album earlier. The average price for original vinyl of this record has been moving between 300 and 400 euros, but luckily it was reissued on CD eventually, and there was also a 500 copy vinyl reissue released by some European vendor, quickly sold out.