KINGSTON WALL II

This album is something magical, brilliant, unique, perfect. You can't find this kind of music from anywhere (except Kingston Wall's other albums).

Petri Walli (1969 - 1995) is one of the biggest music-geniuses ever with no question and a unbelieveable good guitarist. Songs are perfect and ahmosphere can suddenly change from bright instrumental moments to dark and mystical song with strange lyrics. Kingston Wall's music is full of things that makes you love it. Sami Kuoppamäki's drumming should be mentioned also, he is just magnificent.

I can recommend this album (and every other KW-album) to everyoner. If you are music-lover this is something you have to hear!

This I believe is the most appreciated of the three studio albums by this band. "We Cannot Move" opens the record with marching rhythms and oriental chants, the composition having good melodies and verses. This tune sums up quite well their musical style in my opinion: Hard rock with Arabic oriented melodies. "Istwan" has euphoric melody flow, and I believe this track is also presented as an audio stream sample on this site. A good constructed composition, like many other of the bands songs, so though this is clearly psychedelic music, improvisation was more present on their concerts than on their studio recordings. This track leads directly to "Could It Be So?", being a dreamy hazy song with fine solos and melodic. Interesting sound layers make room for "And It's All Happening", a slow and melancholic instrumental tune, holding a wonderful guitar solo in it. This tune turns nicely as "Love Tonight", first driven by bongos and acoustic guitar, which turn to crunchy fuzz guitar. Again a good, thoughtful composition served rarely from a psychedelic dish. These four songs make a wonderful one piece of music, only it's sad that the entity fades out with a bit less imaginative manner. "Two of A Kind" starts with acoustic guitars, which introduce a peculiar rhythm driving this song, having also long passages for guitar solos. This also fades behind some programmed loops and Petri's whisperings, not a very pleasant solution to my ears. "I Feel Love" is then a quite primitive song, relying on a straight basic beat. "Shine On Me" has a fine guitar intro sounding very much like Jimi Hendrix, and there's also a tasty sax from a guest musician, who'll contribute also on their following album. The tune is quite simple, and there's lots of space for instrumental solos. Following "You" is the longest of all tracks reaching ten minutes, and it begins with some Spanish sounding notes from an acoustic guitar and bongos. Soon electric guitar jumps on another key, and the composition progresses to a slow blues after some tasty maneuvers. Some very fine acoustic licks are to be heard here, also the jamming evolves to a very pleasant jazzy chaos. "Palékastro" concludes the album with a firm and tight grasp, being a fast instrumental rocker with interesting rhythm arrangements, and a very uninteresting fade out.

I had a chance to hear the 1998 re-mastered CD version of this album, and it has a mini bonus CD with three bonus tracks. The first two tracks are from a single "We Cannot Move". "Between The Trees" is a quite basic hard rock track without many psychedelic or progressive elements, still being a catchy tune. "She's So Fine" is another Hendrix cover, actually being Noel Redding's composition. Nothing special in my opinion, but good 1960's oriented pop rock song however. Over eleven minutes long "Can't Get Thru'" is a live recording done same year as the album was released. The sound quality isn't very good, but the performance is great, being a very fast wahwah-pedal dominated song with lots of room for jamming. I believe that the song is actually a medley, as later the song has sequences that I'm sure I have heard on other albums of this band. Also sadly another extremely irritating fadeout ends this concert recording. Unless you are a very diehard fan of this band, I wouldn't spend much money on upgrading from an older original CD pressing to this version.

I would also like to mention that bassist Jukka Jylli really shines on this record; There are lots of small spaces left for him to fill in the compositions, and he really uses these opportunities in a fine manner. This is a very good record, but still it hasn't grown as an exceptional album in my own listening catalogues. There are anyway very great moments on it, so give this a listen if you can.

Let's see. Kingston wall.....seems to be a stripped down, bare necessities OZRIC TENTACLES but without Ed Wynne's heavy metal influence instead influenced deep in the psychedelic rock in the vein of PINK FLOYD or perhaps HAWKWIND. Walli's guitar covers a wide spectrum from both electric and acoustic and from sparsely there to an impenetrable wall of noise. The lyrics here are poetic and emotional if not a bit hindered a bit by his influency in the English language. The vocals are mostly unobtrusive and rarely distract from the incredible musicianship over which they are placed. It is clear to me that this band although a progressive band was not confined by strict structure and composition but instead relied upon the incredibly skilled improvisations that made the band known for their intense live act. Their songs leave ample room for free-flow instrumentation and experimentation. Quality album.

Kingston Wall I & III have their good moments, but Kingston Wall II is clearly the best album of this great Finnish band. In this album all Walli's songs are just perfect. There are no weak songs in this album. Shine on me is one of the greatest highlights (especially because of Sakari Kukko's saxophone). I was lucky enough to see the band live in the early 1990's and this stuff was great also in live performance. Everybody should check out the live album "Real Live Thing".

I was trying to think of how to describe Kingston Wall and how it isn't an task. Their sound is both unique and yet very familiar. It sounds like a lot of recordings in my classic rock collection. But at the same time, it has a sound that is unique and really stands out from the rest of what I have. They kind of sound like a psychadelic Led Zeppelin at times, if Jimi Hendrix was the guitarist. Or in the case of We Cannot Move they sound very much like Janes Addiction from the Ritual de lo Habitual era. Not only is the musical style similar, so is the vocal style.

Songs like Could It Be So? feature some fantastic drumming showing these guys had some chops too. And It's All Happening is a fantastically beautiful slow psychadelic blues instrumental ballad, the kind you'd wish David Gilmour would have played on his solo records. Love Tonight is another high octane rocker with great of wah-wah induced guitar leads. Shine on Me is another amazing and gut- wrenching blues number augmented very well with saxophone. You is another great psychadelic song that jams out a bit at 10min to give the band some room to extend themselves. The song is propelled by more great blues guitar playing along with some Indian influences mixed in to give the song a real unique texture.

It's sad that guitarist Petri Walli is no longer with us. His tragic death at such a young age shows that the music scene lost a fatanstic talent, a guitarist with skill that was only exceeded by the passion with which he played. All the Kingston Wall wall discs are great, but the second disc is the best of the three. If you're a fan of Hendrix, Zeppelin, Floyd, or even Janes Addiction; I'd recommend tracking down a copy of this album. I'll admit it is hard to find, but if you look hard enough you can pick it up for under $18 USD. You'll be glad you did.

You're right adigitaldan, it wasn't easy to find at all! Yet i found it online at a decent price (13 ? if i'm not mistaking). I've heard the first CD of Kingston Wall and this one is better. It's less "hard" i gues, and if it's still a bit to hard, the moods often change during the album. First goes hard, second goes spacy, third speeds up again, fourth goes very slow again (cf. adi's gilmour comment), etc ...

They have a nice sound. Maybe it's unique, but isn't all sound unique? The indian influence is obvious. I don't really have the idea to hear the led zeppelin / hendrix influence. Maybe people are just saying that cause they covered a hendrix song on their debut album (fire), or because petri uses a lot of guitar at times.

I might aswell say they got a lot of pink floyd influence, cuz of the spacy sounds they use at times. Specially the Shine on me track starts ringing a bell, which also happens to have a bit of sax in it.

A downside for me is that it's a bit to long... over an hour is just a bit to long for me!

Flaws: Too long, just because I want to listen albums straight through, and I hardly find time for 76 minutes these days. And yes, Petri Walli is an aquired taste singer.

Aaaaand everything else is uphill. I have to say that there are not really any weak song, but "Love Tonight" should have been left out. The first four are amazing, stunning, everything. The last 5 ("Two Of A Kind" - "Palékastro") are just as good.

Starting with the amazing rocker "We Cannot Move". You can hear these mid-eastern influences right away. Sami's drumming is crazy, his fills and beats are a match to any drummer in progscene.

Istwan is a beautiful instrumental. The guitarsolo in the end is stunning. Continued with "Could It Be So?", which is another masterpiece. Strong bassline, amazing drumming and wonderful guitarsolo.

"And it's all happening" starts with a smooth melody and bursts into great rocker in the end, reminds me a lot of Wishbone Ash's - "Argus" material. Wonderful. Love tonight, as I said should have been left, because its the weakest song, I usually skip.

And ah yes, "Two Of A Kind". Just turn the lights off, turn the voice up and close your eyes, 'Cause we're just two of a kind'. Amazing, might be the best song in this album. Words cannot describe.

"I Feel Love" is funny one, it's a Donna Summer cover actually. Well nothing to fear of, nothing to do with the original one :). KW just makes this one work. "Shine On Me" is a beautiful song, starting with smooth melody and Petri's best vocalwork! Love this one.

"You" is a technical song, reminds a bit of "La Villa Strangiato" of Rush, don't worry, this one is amazing song. 10minutes of pure pleasure. "Palekastro" closes the album, an instrumental that you can't go wrong with.

Many people consider this as KW's best work, I usually prefer Tri-Logy because of it's darker sound, but you can't go wrong is you buy this one. The lyrics aren't the best, but still a masterpiece.

Kingston Wall is a Finnish band formed in 1987. They sound a lot like a hard rock band, but they have a lot of prog elements that make it a progressive rock band. "Kingston Wall II" is surprise surprise their second album. It is the most appreciated album amongst fans. It is clearly influenced by Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd. There are some eastern music influences as well.

This album is really easy to get into. At least for me it clicked right away. The reason for this is probably the rocking first song "We Cannot Move". The song starts with a blast. It's one of the most rocking songs in the album and it features great drumming. Petri Walli is a great guitarist, but what struck me was the incredible drumming thoughout the album. "We Cannot Move" is a good example. The first song is a very good opener in the sense that it gives a good impression of what you are about to hear later in the album. It has the hard rock feel, eastern influences, great drumming and imaginative guitar playing.

Some people might find Petri Walli's singing a bit weird, but it's certainly unique. At first I didn't really care about his voice, but it has slowly grown on me. Even if you don't like his voice the album has a lot of other things going on and I don't think his voice will be a big problem for anyone.

The best thing for me in this album is the drumming. The guy is insane! Really rocking and innovative drumming. Most people will mention Walli's great guitar playing, but to me it's the drummer that stands out. Of course Walli is great too. He does have a lot of great emotional solos and his acoustic guitar work is outstanding.

The album consists of great rocking songs and then some emotional guitar-driven songs. At first the album might not seem all that emotional, but after a few listens you can hear the emotional guitar solos and emotional singing.

Overall one of the best prog records released in Finland. Certainly a great addition to any prog music collection. If you're into rocking prog then there's no better place to go than here. I wouldn't call it a masterpiece though. There are some minor flaws, but they don't make the listening experience any worse.

Exeptional record I must say. And like the first one this just grooves so well. But this one is more composory as the first was more rocking. And to be honest this album is time to time little bit dull to me. I find myself skipping some songs and just tasting the cherrys from the top. Still in this album contains some of the best Kw song in my opinion. But as a hole the first one just did it for me much better.

I love this band ! This one isn't as spacey and psychedelic as the next one "Tri-logy" as that one had synths on it and this one doesn't. But man, talk about guitar driven rock with a psychedelic edge ! The production is great too as you can hear the fantastic bass playing clearly throughout this record. As a matter of fact this three piece band are just amazing players period.

"We Cannot Move" is a melodic song with some beautiful guitar melodies throughout. "Istwan" is an instrumental that reminds me of LED ZEPPELIN at times, and features some guest violin playing and some tasteful guitar melodies.This blends into the next song "Could It Be So ?", again the guitar playing of Petri is the best part of the song. This has a real a pychedelic feel to it. "And It's All Happening" is an instrumental and one of my favourite songs on the album. Everything is slowed right down and is atmospheric. The guitar playing is so beautiful, he had such a gift. The melody picks up before 3 minutes. "Love Tonight" opens with percussion and vocals and we get a full sound 2 minutes in.The sound is heavy and we are treated to some great solos after 4 minutes. The rest of the song is simply awesome !

"Two Of A Kind" is another killer track. It gets better as it goes with some blistering guitar half way through."I Feel Love" features bass and drums that create an uptempo rhythm as vocals soar overtop.This is like a dance song played by a hard rock band ! A real hypnotic beat to this one. "Shine On Me" has a bluesy feel to it at times although the bass playing reminded me of RUSH. There is some atmospheric guitar and some nice sax melodies in this slow but powerful tune. The guitar is too beautiful for words ! "You" is the longest track and another favourite.Tempo shifts, vocal melodies and some amazing bass playing in this one. The melody around 6 minutes in rocks and is the best part of the album for me. "Palekastro" is an instrumental that hits you in the face right away with a heavy blow.The guitar playing is mind boggling man and the drumming is world class!

Well I may have felt that "Tri-logy" was not quite a masterpiece, but this one definetly is a masterpiece of progressive music !

Hey Phish and Moe fans! Now THIS is my idea of a jam band!

Another tip of the cap to Sinkadotentree for leading this horse to water (And I drank this time!) The legend that is guitarist Petri Walli doesn't take much effort to appreciate.

Sometimes it's just hard to find the adjectives to do something justice. Kingston is pure fiery rock and roll joy, a burning power trio that is a little bit Dungen, a little Dazed and Confused, a little Hendrix, a little jam band, a little Frusciante, a little pysch flavored magic mushroom music. Or maybe just real rock and roll played with spiritual intensity.

There's no point in a track by track. With the exception of 1 or 2 fairly conventional rock songs (which are still good) every other song is pure jam-rock nirvana. Blissful, soaring, epic lead guitar playing by a true master of the instrument, solid bass that you can actually hear, and monster drum playing. Lather-rinse-repeat. Occasionally some nice acoustic, violin, or sax add icing to the cake. Exceptionally intuitive playing will leave you breathless. Especially "Shine On Me" and "You" which actually make me feel young again if you catch my drift. How many songs do that to you? "Shine On Me" literally makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, especially when Walli sings "see my future see a dead man." Terribly haunting stuff that stands up with the great epic rock songs. The drumming on here is also unbelievably good, Sami just rolls and pummels with killer instincts.

Petri's singing voice is somewhat limited but this album isn't about the vocals. I'll make this as simple as possible. If you are a fan of Zeppelin, Hendrix, Dungen, Cream, Rush, or any combination thereof, you need to hear Kingston Wall 2. You need to hear it soon. Sadly, Petri took his own life at a young age denying the world of a truly special, gifted songwriter and guitarist. A damn shame. But this is not mopey, depressing music. This music is alive with passion!

A solid 4 stars for me although I completely understand those who gave it 5. I was very close. Essential for guitar rock fans and a clear candidate for one of the top albums of the 90s.

My second review and Kingston Walls second album.

Kingston Wall is my favorit band from my home country. This album is often considered to be their best and I agree with the common opinion in this case - athough their last album ain´t really worse than this. This album is filled with great musicianship and excellent compositions. Sami Kuoppamäki on drums and Jukka Jylli bass both give a spot on performance on this album. Sami´s drumming drives the songs forward with such huge energy and Jukka puts out a bunch of really nice bass grooves. And once we place Petri Walli´s stellar guitar playing on top of this we have the best Finnish album of the 90´s. I sometimes hear people saying bad things about Petri´s singing, and while I would agree that he certainly ain´t a technically proficient singer - I still thing his voice suits the music perfectly and that he knows how to make the most of his vocal abilities.

For me this album carries a great amount of positive energy even in the slower songs. I will recommend this album to just about everyone wandering around on the site. This is some of the best psychedelic rock made.

As for influences, if you think of a mix of Pink Floyd, Hendrix and Zeppelin you might get close to what this music is about, but I strongly suggest you check them out for yourself.

Without a doubt a 5 star master piece of progressive rock.

(don´t worry folks I will give smaller ratings as soon as I´m done with my favourites)

As their debut album already proved, Kingston Wall was at their best in long songs full of jamming. And their second album is full of those. The exceptionally good guitar- (Petri Walli) and drumwork (Sami Kuoppamäki) are the reasons why this album takes you to the higher grounds.

The album starts with the wonderful hard-rocking rush of "We Cannot Move" and continues to beautiful instrumental sweep of "Istwan", both songs full of eastern influences. "Shine on Me" later on the album is arguably Kingston Wall's definite masterpiece. It's a haunting song where Walli's guitar-playing and singing is backed magnificently with saxophone. The 10-minute epic, "You", is almost as good. Worth a mention is also the Donna Summer(!) -cover "I Feel Love", a disco-hit turned into psychedelic, hypnotizing progressive rock.

A truly wonderful album and strongly recommended for the lovers of guitar-based psychedelic rock.

Sometimes a band comes along which gets lavished with praise but, when you come along to see what all the fuss is about, they just plain fail to win you over. That's how Kingston Wall are for me. I guess they're good at lifting motifs and techniques from Pink Floyd and the Ozric Tentacles, but what results are bland Ozrics-esques jams littered with Floydisms learned by rote. I guess if you are hopelessly addicted to Floyd-derived space rock this could tickle that itch, but for me there's simply nothing exciting to write home about here. Not incompetent, but hardly essential either, I'd say this deserves two and a half stars (tack on a half star if you're a Floyd fan).

A flying carpet to explore sand temples

Whereas their previous album was promising but still a bit immature and uneven, KINGSTON WALL's second opus shows important improvements on many points. The band reinforces its identity by mixing elements from LED ZEPPELIN, JIMI HENDRIX, PINK FLOYD and middle-eastern music into more structured, more melodic and less improvised compositions. The result is quite progressive and unique in the psychedelic / space rock genre. This disc is also the first one to truly display Petri Walli's great guitaristic talents.

As an opener, the arabic hard prog "We Cannot Move" is efficient and catchy. On the contrary, "Istwan" is a calm pleasant folk instrumental tune that can remind LED ZEP's "III" at the beginning, but differs after. "Could It Be So?" is one of the best passages of the record. Its spacey intro unveils a powerful track with a great guitar solo. The slow melancholic "And It's All Happening" has a floyd-ish introduction and then becomes more nervous. It contains many evolutions and rhythm changes, but also demonstrates the incredible guitar play of Petri Walli. "Love Tonight" possesses a mystical opening and its melody has reminiscences with "We Cannot Move". Another nice moment of the record.

Despite, its synthesizer beginning, "Two of a Kind" sounds more like a grunge song but is nonetheless pleasant. Although a bit out of place, the cover of Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" is quite rocky and fun. "Shine On Me" is a sweet melancholic ballad reminding HENDRIX's "Little Wing", but incorporating a saxophone. The 10 minutes mini epic "You" is the longest and the most progressive track of the record. It features various ambiances and rhythms and alternates calm and aggressive moments. To prettily conclude the disc, the instrumental "Palékastro" can be described as a strong middle-eastern space metal track with cosmic guitar, and will become a classic at the band's concerts.

Although the arabic theme is - once again - half-respected, this flawless second album is KINGSTON WALL's most personal. No weak track or abrupt changes here, the flow remains good while the compositions are varied. Quite unique in the psychedelic genre, "II" is a mastered interesting mixture of early hard rock, space rock and middle- eastern music, with top-notch guitar play from Petri Walli, as well as their most progressive and varied opus. The band has created its own identity.

KINGSTON WALL's best studio album. Highly recommended, you'll travel on a magic carpet to discover a new continent with its hidden treasures...

Petri Walli & Company mature and polish, try a little more adventure, unfortunately it's Petri who has done the most work, the most growing; Jukka and Sami are really not in the same league. Petri's guitar has so much to say that almost every song has to go over six minutes just to fully express himself.

1. "We Cannot Move" (4:39) let the Indian influences begin! (8.5/10)

2. "Istwan" (4:02) acoustic guitar picking with droning strings leads into a kind of BEATLES/BEACH BOYS C&W song style. Interesting! (8.5/10)

3. "Could It Be So?" (5:52) back to psychedelia: guitar drenched heavily in reverb leads of and solos from the get go. This is HENDRIX/Frank MARINO heaven! And the band does very well to keep up with Petri. (Maybe they've finally awakened.) And he's singing about reincarnation! A top three song for me. (9/10)

4. "And It's All Happening" (6:07) slowed down, spacious blues-rock instrumental. Pure Hendrix or maybe Gilmour amped up by ten. Masterful and emotional. (8.75/10)

5. "Love Tonight" (6:40) though the electric guitar is bleeding over from the previous song, strumming acoustic guitars, Indian-sounding percussion, and either bowed electric guitar or violin establish a TRAFFIC or Alvin Lee-like song structure before Petri begins singing and then turning full on LED ZEPPELIN. Amazingly piercing electric guitar playing during the solo section. And then he's holding back--turns to strumming for his lead work! Absolutely amazing! (8.5/10)

6. "Two Of a Kind" (6:23) returning to the Arabian deserts with acoustic guitar strumming, joined by odd synth-sounding bass before Petri starts singing and the rest of the band joins in. During the first instrumental section, Petri's solo is full-on HENDRIX. It's as if he's channeling the master! Drums get a chance to show off (nice job Sami!) before second verse of singing starts. Another blazing, faster-than-light guitar solo follows. Wow! (8.5/10)

7. "I Feel Love" (6:39) Yes! THE "I Feel Love"! Done Euro-Petri-style! It almost works! (8.25/10)

8. "Shine On Me" (7:05) introduced with a heavy, bluesy picked electric guitar chord progression accompanied by soloing saxophone, Petri's almost-whispered voice delivers the first verse as the band's rhythm track kicks in, before the first guitar solo. Sax does a great job of dancing around Petri's vocals--and the bass and drums intensify nicely after the second verse, encouraging Petri to amp it up for his second guitar solo. Unfortunately, it's rather blues-rock solo by the numbers--the sax is actually outshining the guitar! The music tones down significantly after the third verse, paving the way for a much more sensitive, bluesy GILMOUR-like solo. (13.25/15)

9. "You" (10:11) the opening feels like something from an AL DiMEOLA album. The Latin flavor soon diminishes (@1:15) as electrified guitar sound amplifies. Petri's vocalise and Jukka's bass play are strongly entrained. Then everything backs way down for a spacious, more RY COODER-like acoustic guitar section before electric guitar reenters in a dramatic fashion. Soft, spacious in the fifth minute as Petri finally starts to sing--in a soft, relaxed, Robert Plant-like way. Amped up drums in the sixth minute signal a shift in dynamics: bass and guitar take off, with Petri's wah-ed lead taking us through some Pete Townsend moves before settling on a more staccato approach. Around 7:40 it begins to sound as if there are multiple guitar tracks contributing. New Spanish chord structure at 8:00 leads to another round of Petri alternating between vocalise and lead guitar. Then, at 9:00, we switch back to the soft, spacious motif for Petri to finish the singing off. (17.5/20)

10. "Palékastro" (4:54) a fast paced instrumental rocker to finish off the album unfortunately showcases the discrepancy in skill level between Petri Walli and both of his band mates. (8.25/10)

Total Time: 76:36

B/four stars; an excellent step forward for this guitar god--the possible reincarnation of Master Jimi.

There's a strange amount of the reviews here lauding that track seven, I Feel Love, sounds like a dance track played by a prog band.... Well as most of you know, that's what it is, and hopefully Donna Summer approves because it's done very very well. The rest of the album bounces around between space rock styles, Pink Floyd-esque motifs and catchy jams. There's nothing wrong with "copying" the Pink Floyd style, not every prog album has to bring something completely new to the table. Kingston Wall take it, put their spin on it, and do it brilliantly. Recommend picking it up on Spotify these days, for a good upbeat album.