Monday, June 10, 2024

Living Force, New Zealand


Living Force. 1977 Atlantic 

Living Force were formed from the ashes of another obscure New Zealand band called Spacefarm. In reviewing their sole album, 1972-1974 era Santana is the obvious blueprint here. Plenty of Sri Chinmoy spirituality references, not to mention Carlos' trademark sustain guitar style. A bit out of its era, but wonderfully so. The Santana reference also is apparent on the percussion heavy instrumentals. The songwriter tracks are more in line with other bands from Australasia during the 70s. I hear bits of Pantha in particular, and smaller doses of Dragon, Ragnarok, and Sebastian Hardie. The album's only misstep is 'Sail This Boat', an insipid pop number that wouldn’t be out of place on a time travel American Idol episode. One wishes they would have attempted an entirely instrumental album... that would’ve been a killer. 

Priority: 2

12/22/09

3 comments:

Richard said...

nice blog.

Richard /Germany

hani said...

Hi there.. did you know that "The Ticket" has been reissued recently on CD which is Eddie Hansen (from the Living Force) in his earlier band "The Ticket"

:)

(He's my dad, btw)

Purple Peak Records said...

Hello Hani,

Yes, I did see that. Both of the Ticket albums are fine hard rock albums. That's cool he's your Dad! Thanks for the comment!

- Tom

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