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CD
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WH 90306CD
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Two albums in one CD reissue of the first two Kalevala albums from 1972 and 1975, respectively. Flared Finnish hard rock/prog extrapolation, somewhat infamous for the album title Boogie Jungle! "Kalevala was founded in 1969 by bassist Juha 'Lido' Salonen. The band's early line-up sported such would-be icons of no-nonsense Finnish rock as guitarist Albert Jarvinen and drummer Remu Aaltonen, and that's pretty much what their early material was, straight-ahead and aggressive guitar rock. Some of the songs on People No Names are closer to psychedelic than progressive rock in that they are still essentially grounded in the blues scale, especially during the vocal sections, but feature some compositional sophistication beyond the scope of ordinary rock music and long guitar solos over repetitive instrumental vamps. Boogie Jungle is much more straight-forward an affair than the first one was: gritty '70s hard rock with dual electric-guitars riffing and soloing over alternatively solid and vaguely funky rhythm sections. The new vocalist, 'Limousine' Leppanen, has a stronger voice than his predecessor and in fact reminds of Family's Roger Chapman, albeit without the monster vibrato. The ballad 'If We Found the Time' has an intricate guitar arrangement with layers of acoustic and electric slide, while 'Jungle' goes on a seven minute instrumental jam with throbbing bass, drums and spacey synth whistles over which Kurkinen spreads a smorgasbord of Jan Ackerman influenced guitar work and finally concludes the song on a rather anthemic note." -- Liner notes.
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