STATIC RAW POWER KRAUT

HISKO DETRIA is an obscure psych band from Turku, Finland, and this, presumably self-financed, album their only release this far. [The word obscure refers also to strange pseudonyms some of the players use instead of their real names.] Three of the four tracks are 13-15 minutes long; the "short" one is seven minutes. The instrumentally oriented music - with lots of guitar favouring distorted heavyish sound - is very faithful to the general concept of Psychedelic Space Rock through the decades. Bands such as HAWKWIND, GRATEFUL DEAD and AMON DÜÜL II (plus probably many less famous psychedelic acts of the 70's German Krautrock scene) are obviously familiar to this quintet.

'On the Road Again' is originally by CANNED HEAT (a band I haven't listened to). It has some song-like vocals unlike HD's own material - and for them it slightly reminds me of The DOORS' 'Roadhouse Blues' - but most of the time it continues instrumentally in a monotonous, trippy manner and sounds pretty much the same as the rest of the album. One of the key features in this acid-associated underground approach is exactly the way tracks go on and on, without much progress, in order to become hypnotic; prog listeners without any interest towards psychedelia won't get notable pleasure out of this album.

The opener 'Nothing Happens' wanders meditatively for the earliest four minutes before the heavy rhythm sets in, and actually I find that intro more interesting than the over-stretched whacking after it. This music must be a demanding physical effort asking for patience & endurance for the bassist and the drummer, whereas the two guitarists have more expressionistic freedom. There's a keyboard player too but his contribution gets quite lost in the thick sound most of the time, sadly. The "short" track 'Poserslave' has also rather one-dimensional steady beat, but it is the happiest track due to the more economic length, some brighter guitar chords and sparse, one-word-at-the- time vocals (in Finnish, despite the English title). A little sense of humour too...

'Hisko Detria' has the fastest tempo and occasional, wildly howling vocals that may irritate some listeners. To me these 13 minutes are quite tiresome, but the brief, intentionally pathetic speech part narrating of Andreas Baader, Vladimir Rajanovich, Atte Häkkinen, Klaus Löpöti and Jätkä riding "through the five corners of the cosmos" to become known as Hisko Detria is amusing, bringing some more lunatic charm into this surpriseless and mediocre slice of Psychedelic Space Rock. 2½ stars rounded up for the nice cover design which is a perfect match to the innocently low budget music. This really isn't a bad album at all, it just lacks originality and more varied musical substance.