GRUPA GALIJA

One of the few ex-Yugo rock bands I've heard till' today,Galija came from Nis,Serbia. Already from the early years the band suffered from several line-up changes,however they did win the first place at the Gitarijada Festival in Zajecjar in 1978.Galija started being popular after opening for the SMAK tour the same year.1979 sees the release of their debut ''Grupa Galija (Prva plovidba)''.

The album consists of seven tracks,the general style is mainly Classic Rock with some ZEPPELIN-like hard breaks and the Milosavljevic brothers responsible for the vocals,but there are also a couple of longer cuts with some diversity.The first three tracks give a good picture of the style,standard Classic-Hard Rock with boogie and early-RUSH overtones.The long yet melodic ''Posrednik'' offers nice moog synth passages by Ljubodrag Vukadinovic with a GENESIS-aura,fair amount of complexity and fantastic guitar work by Goran Ljubisavljevic,a good piece of music.With ''Madjionicar'' the band returns to the previous style,Classic Rock with good guitar and some inspired organ but no surprises at all.''Gospi'' is a melodic melancholic ballad of decent quality with the almost 10 min. ''Decimen'' closing the album.A rather nice number,not that cohesive,but again Vukadinovic performs really well on keys offering a few fantastic solos,the track is close to Symphonic Rock with even HACKETT-ish resemblances in the guitar section.

Galija could really have been a good band regarding the progressive point of view,if giving more space to keyboards or just leaving these straight rock inspirations apart.For the time,the album is rather uneven,vocals are not a highlight as well,but the two long pieces deserve more attention...2.5 stars.