GRUPA GALIJA

"He drives his Mercedes, he listens to only PROGRESS and jazz on his loud quadrophonic hi-fi, he likes fancy stuff and good lookin' ladies, he is a real adventurer"....

Can this be a true description of an average prog rock fan at the end of 1970s? Perhaps, but this is actually an opening track of the debut album of ex-Yugoslavian light prog rock outfit GALIJA. The song is called "Avanturist" ("Adventurer") and was a considerable hit at that time in 1979. A blues rocker with harmonica. Then it goes "Letnja pesma" ("Summer Song") with a sticky singalong chorus, some nice guitar and organ. "Pesma za dobro jutro" ("Song For Good Morning") is another blues rocker/boogie riff with harmonica a la ROLLING STONES and it is a bad song so you better skip it. Then it comes the highlight No. 1 - "Posrednik" ("Mediator"). It's a full blown prog of symphonic type with lots of changes in tempos, mood and time, filled with organ, synths, acoustic and electric guitars and some spacey passages. Neso Milosavljevic gave here one of his best vocal performances. "Madjionicar" ("The Magician") starts with some strange rhythm produced by guitar strings and deep organ chords followed by some good synth and guitar solos. Again there is some unnecessary tribute to THE STONES in the vocals going "uhhuuuu uhuuu" like taken from "Sympathy to the Devil" and guitar riffs a la Richards, which guitarist Goran Ljubisavljevic obviously loved so much. Then she comes.... "Gospi" ("To My Lady"), one of the cult gentle organ- filled ballads of GALIJA that local Yugoslav hippies liked to adore a lot in early 1980s and go trance during its live performances. But, wait a minute, it sounds familiar - that's right! CAMEL -"The Mystic Queen" from 1973 debut!

Now digress, the story goes further in the years 1983/84. Couple of my prog fanatic friends happened to serve the army in Nis (now in Serbia) the hometown of GALIJA. One day, they met Neso Milosavljevic on the street and, instead of requesting an autograph, blatantly asked him why he had "stolen" the song from CAMEL. Neso, seeing the fury and rage in their eyes and feeling that he would be executed immediately should he denied the terrible accusations, finally admitted and confessed the horrible sin - yes, he liked "Mystic Queen" so much that he could not resist "borrowing" a few ideas, but only for the general benefit of progressive rock! Inquisitors agreed to let him go this time, but only if he promise to stay away from stupid STONES imitations and concentrate all the energy to pure and unspoiled prog rock! Alas, Neso kept the promise until the third album, after which he exposed himself again to the prog purist curse...

Back to 1979! Finally the ending brings a highlight No. 2 - "Decimen" (beats me, what that means?), a lengthy multi-part track which was also a popular live performance with some quasi-operetic choruses at the end.

Overall, this badly produced album brings several fresh ideas from Neso and his brother Predrag, who was a lyricist and backing vocalist. All the songs, except "Pesma za dobro jutro" are actually quite listenable, even today, while the entire set used to be played regularly on many concerts GALIJA played in the years to come. On stage, they wore sort of antique/baroque robes, while Neso kept trying to act like Ian Anderson of JETHRO TULL and to amuse the audience. Instead of flute, he played harmonica sometimes. They were never regarded as special musicians but in turn they had energy on stage. GALIJA was a band that took influnce from the classic prog acts of the 1970s, but was never prepared to progress further for an adventure (despite its opening hit from this record) much less for an experimentation. They were content to stick often to straight rock'n'roll forms in order to please the masses, but this way they just lost much of their credibility. This debut album, sometimes mistakenly titled "Prva plovidba" ("The First Voyage") because the sophomore album actually bears the title "Druga plovidba" ("The Second Voyage"), is not exactly essential in the catalogue of prog albums of Yugoslavia, but is still worth taking into account. Particularly if you like to hear some "symphonic" attempts from the Southeastern Europe of the time. I am probably giving it too much merit because of nostalgic reasons... otherwise it would be 3 stars.

One of the few ex-Yugo rock bands I've heard till' today,Galija came from Nis,Serbia. Already from the early years the band suffered from several line-up changes,however they did win the first place at the Gitarijada Festival in Zajecjar in 1978.Galija started being popular after opening for the SMAK tour the same year.1979 sees the release of their debut ''Grupa Galija (Prva plovidba)''.

The album consists of seven tracks,the general style is mainly Classic Rock with some ZEPPELIN-like hard breaks and the Milosavljevic brothers responsible for the vocals,but there are also a couple of longer cuts with some diversity.The first three tracks give a good picture of the style,standard Classic-Hard Rock with boogie and early-RUSH overtones.The long yet melodic ''Posrednik'' offers nice moog synth passages by Ljubodrag Vukadinovic with a GENESIS-aura,fair amount of complexity and fantastic guitar work by Goran Ljubisavljevic,a good piece of music.With ''Madjionicar'' the band returns to the previous style,Classic Rock with good guitar and some inspired organ but no surprises at all.''Gospi'' is a melodic melancholic ballad of decent quality with the almost 10 min. ''Decimen'' closing the album.A rather nice number,not that cohesive,but again Vukadinovic performs really well on keys offering a few fantastic solos,the track is close to Symphonic Rock with even HACKETT-ish resemblances in the guitar section.

Galija could really have been a good band regarding the progressive point of view,if giving more space to keyboards or just leaving these straight rock inspirations apart.For the time,the album is rather uneven,vocals are not a highlight as well,but the two long pieces deserve more attention...2.5 stars.