When I first started playing this in the car I was just blown away. Here was a band that had captured the passion and style of Bad Company with strong vocals, good guitars, great organ, warm bass and powerful drums. They fully understood the need for good arrangements, and were quite happy to move to acoustic (such as on the wonderful “Sailing Away”) and had produced an album that made me smile each time I played it (and I have been playing it quite a lot). The only question in my mind, was were they British or American? I favoured the former, but it was just possible that it might be the latter although to my ears it was too restrained and ‘genuine’ (in terms of Seventies rock) for that to be the case.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that not only were these guys not new, and that this wasn’t a debut, but that they were formed in the mid 90s in Jyväskylä, a small town in central Finland! Inverse Records have surprised me a few times recently, and this is yet another genuine find, as these guys should be much better known outside of their home country. I can’t talk to the other albums (they’ve released at least six, some of which are live albums), but according to their web site this is their first for eight years, although there have been a few gigs every year so it doesn’t appear that they broke up in the intervening period, rather that they were just quiet on the recording front.
This is an album that anyone who loves Seventies classic rock is going to really enjoy, as it contains all of the elements that made that period such a strong one for music. Bad Company are the main influence, but Mott The Hoople are also contenders, and I just love their use of Hammond Organ. The album is available through all the usual places, and their own site is www.whippingpost.org. This is a band that is well worth investigating
