POLYANDRI

The third and last full length album of Group 1850 is very different from the others. The big differences are in the release date, as the summer of love is long gone and even the psychedelia is changing shape, and in the lineup shown in the album's booklet.

The band originally composed of four members in the first album, five with the addition of Dave Duba in the second is now a patchwork of instrumentists as 13 people are credited and only the bassist Dolf Geldof, a new entry, and the keyboardist Peter Sjardin, one original band member, played on almost all the tracks. This is a consequence of the turbulences which have initially led to a merge of the original band with the "ORANGE BOVEN" and a bit later to the definitive disbanding.

It's interesting the fact that regardless the differences in the lineup that we find from one song to the other the album seems to have an internal coherence and continuity. Apart of the blues of "U" which has krautrock vocals and can be considered a krautrock track, all the other songs are I think precursors of the psychedelia to come like 35007 and OZRIC TENTACLES.

some tracks are very good, specially the most electronic, like "Cages". The sax on "Avant Les Pericles" is remarkable. This is effectively a sax solo with some keyboard background with a little noisy interlude and jazzy drums in the final.

Only the last track "Pumping Up The Rubber Trees" is reminding of the past as it features three of the original band's members.

A good album, so rare to be a valuable collection item (I don't own it on vinyl, unfortunately), but a step behind its predecessors.

3 stars