UNDERGROUND AND BEYOND

Although, in principle, I fully welcome the 're-discovery' of bands playing in that classic 70s Hard Rock style - which is surely one of the greatest but least appreciated contributions to popoular music of that decade - I can't help thinking that there were surely many other bands better deserving this treatment. The guitar contributions are reasonably good although nothing spectacular and some of the riffs are catchy. But too often these riffs sound simply like repeats of Bad Company's 'Feel Like Making Love' . This, in itself, is no bad thing but there is perhaps an over-reliance on the duh-duh dah riff on this album with no great elaboration or development. The other contributions are, alas, fairly perfunctory. And two flutes! You can hardly tell from the contribution they make. The Grieg adaptation is dull and the 'Spanish' musical references only half-hearted. Now, I have only heard snatches of this band's more recent albums but it seems that the music has become fuller and better thought out. I shall, therefore, probably hope to listen to some of these albums soon. But I'm left wondering why this band rather than the thousands of other unsung, unsigned and unrecorded hard rock, heavy progressive bands of the 70s were not chosen before them.