KIN PING MEH 3

This band was really phenomenal by the time I grew up at small city, Madiun, East Java, Indonesia. Early seventies was the best era for rock music and local bands like God Bless, Giant Step, AKA, Freedom of Rhapsodia, Trenchem as well as international bands were very common for discussion of the youngsters while sipping a cup of tea. We even made radio station to socialize the music that we really loved at that time. Kin Ping Meh was one of the main acts that we used as material for radio station. When this album was released, I only got the cassette version and the tune "Come on In" (5:20) soon became a hit for all rockers around the city. This song has a simple yet powerful riffs combined with interesting drumming by Kalle Weber. It was a similarity on his drumming with the music of Rolling Stone "Honky Tonk Woman". Rockers at my city frequently used the riffs and drummin' as greeter when all meet together at strategic rendezvous - warung nasi pecel - talking everything about rock music which had been in our blood then. Such a great time.

Vocal quality of Geff Harrison was actually not so good but as the music sounds simple so we all like this band. "Rock is the Way" was also hit at that time because the local band God Bless covered it wonderfully at one of its gigs in Jakarta. My all-time favorite is of course "Circus" which has a truly prog composition. "Mrs Holmes" is also an interesting composition.

Overall, this is a good album of pretty much hard rock music with some prog elements (especially in "Circus"). As this is a legendary band, I recommend you to have it. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

The feel of sweat running down your scrotum

This is one terrific album! You won't find much in the way of prog rock or classical fugue inspired sections, but you will however come across an honest powerful hard rock band that plays close to the style of Scorpions, late Atomic Rooster, Uriah Heep and Deep Purple.

All of these tracks are wonderfully executed, and while this band stems from Germany - you'd be hard pressed to know that from the vocals, let alone the surrounding carnivorous rock n' roll attack. No the music is what I'd call a mixture of the aforementioned acts and a healthy and lovable dose of American West coast psychedelia. -Think Steve Miller Band with hair in its mouth... One could be so frank and call them a heavy hard hitting version of The Grateful Dead, but somehow that just doesn't ring true.

We're talking balls to the walls, the smell of leather - going down the highway on motorbikes with the wind in your hair. The music itself is heavy guitar rock with the complimentary hammond organ and a rhythm section that is tight as hell. David Coverdale raspy vocals belching out undying lines such as: "Come on in and taste my water. Come on in and let your hair down." Once in a while you get these snarling Lynyrd Skynyrd solos levitating from the booming rock orchestration underneath, the whole feel of the band shifts gear and comfortably puts it into overdrive.

So we've got a band doing the kind of music, that was as normal as the schlager is to Germany. I mean, this type of record was back then as common and plenty-full as a house fly in your butcher's shop or a stick of bamboo in a Chinese forest. Everybody was doing this brand of hard rock - even the prog rock deities - although they had long gone dispensed of it. All of these bands dipped their toes in the pool with differentiating results no less, yet still that doesn't change the fact that I am writing this review on a progressive rock site, and looking for prog in this offering is rather like trying to spot originality on one of those American Idol shows, It ain't gonna happen bro.

I might have to swallow my own words here or at least tone it down a nudge, because when we finally reach the 13 min long track called Circus, something stupendous and magical suddenly happens. It's not what I would call prog - not in the slightest, but the emphasis on spiralling untethered musical structures have now come to the fore. The track unfolds these playful acoustical segments sounding like a criss cross between Chinese folklore and late 60s experimentation. Not only does this track hover and glide majestically over these beautifully orchestrated sections, but now we are treated to synthesizers as well. (Damn were those even invented in 73?) There's no real illusion as to which band we're listening to. The sound is still very much like the rest of the Lynyrd Skynyrd rockers, but somehow the intro along with some aptly placed brass instruments here and there, does add to the album that little bit of "yeah allright it's 1973 - everybody around us is doing something fantastically advanced and imaginative - so we'd better make a long one with some alternating tempers as well."

If what you get out of this review is the feel of meh and yuki - hard rock is just about the most mundane of things next to cream cheese and sweaters, then you should probably stick with the odd Deep Purple slice of rock history in the back of your collection and be done with it, but if you however are interested in an album that is as out of touch to the times surrounding it, and you furthermore are fond of reckless, boisterous, sweaty, heavy and wonderfully played barbecue hard rock, then this third album by Kin Ping Meh is anything but meh. I personally enjoy listening to this when I'm in need of something earthy and robust to shake along to whilst I'm getting ready to go out on the town and drink beers in trees and shout profanities at large lawyers on bicycles.