RAKASTATKO VIELÄ KUN ON ILTA

The Svart Records' vinyl re-release of the Finnish TABULA RASA's second album "Ekkedien tanssi" contains this final single as a supplement. And like the great-looking gatefold LP sleeve featuring new liner notes by the band's lyricist Mikko Alatalo (who was a singer-songwriter in his own right, not a TR member), the fold-out 7" sleeve also contains new liner notes - both in Finnish and in English. Curiously though, they concentrate on the former vocalist Jukka Leppilampi, who found faith and left the band after Ekkedien tanssi was released.

The new singer was Jukka Salmela whose positively ordinary vocals suit very well to the less proggy pop-rock style of Tabula Rasa after the more symphonic debut (1975). 'Rakastatko vielä kun on ilta' (= Will you still love when the evening comes) is a rather straight-forward, slightly funky, harmless, chorus-repetitive song, but a fairly good one as such. The listener simply shouldn't be expecting to hear any prog in it. The lyrics are this time by the great late Juice Leskinen.

The B-sider is 'Yksin' (= Alone), composed, as always, by the guitarist Heikki Silvennoinen and with Alatalo's lyrics as usual. This is equally a non-progressive pop song, in a slightly slower tempo. It succesfully captures the melancholic emotions of a fresh family man temporarily away from his wife and child.

As far as I know, this single has always been highy appreciated in Finland (by the rock/pop audience in general, not by those who cried after the withering prog genre), and I personally agree that these two tracks are good pop of the time. There have been great prog bands who turned into bad pop, and it's surely better to do good pop than a bad hybrid of prog and pop. And regarding that one gets two non-album songs, this single deserves three friendly stars.