KINGSTON WALL I

As the cover art expresses the Eastern influence is very strong on this album (and other Kingston Wall albums as well). The music can be categorized as psychedelic progressive rock and has influences from Zeppelin, Hawkwind, Hendrix, and some Pink Floyd can be heard as well. Still I think the overall sound and atmosphere is very unique, created mostly by shamanic and intense guitarwork of Petri Walli and decorative, improvisational drumming of Sami Kuoppamäki. The actual songs are not as interesting, they're more like frames for the exceptional playing and psychedelia. Which doesn't mean that the album would be only to show off their skills - it is a very good psychedelic rock album to dive into.

The best songs of the album are "With My Mind", Hendrix-cover "Fire", "Waste of Time" and "Nepal". Also the trippy and a bit silly Mushrooms-suite is worth mentioning, though it's not very strong as a whole. It seems that Kingston Wall is at their best in long, epic songs with much room to improvise. The vocal melodies are not particularly good, maybe due to Petri Walli's limited singing skills. Still they work well enough at least in the aforementioned four songs.

A very promising debut album and is not much weaker than their best work, (the next album: "II").