Symphonic Slam Views

Music

r"Symphonic Slam was mainly about Timo Laine (born in Finland, and moved to America as a child), and his polyphonic guitar synthesizer. The rest of the band was filled out by drummer John Lowery, and keyboardist David Stone.Timo had been playing the club circuit for a while, but it wasn't until he relocated to Canada that things began to happen...o" (history taken from www.progarchives.com)

Symphonic Slam were guitarist Timo Laine's baby, although they're best known for providing Rainbow with their third keyboard player, David Stone. Laine actually lists his main instrument as the '360 Systems polyphonic guitar synthesizer', although guitar synthesis of any sort was a somewhat inexact science in 1976. It's fairly easy to spot where he uses it, as synth lines track the guitar parts (listen to the unaccompanied solo on How Do You Stand), with Stone often being used in a rather background role, which may explain his defection to Blackmore's crew. The band were a trio, with no bass, so although the low frequencies are covered by Stone's keys, the album is rather lacking in the bottom end.

The music's a sort of hard rock/pomp hybrid, with a progressive edge in places, although the sleeve suggests a far proggier proposition. Laine's vocals are in the North American rock'n'roll tradition, which you will probably either love or hate. I know I do. The band sound like they needed to decide which way they were going to go, as Symphonic Slam tries too hard to be all things to all men, with funky clavinet parts one minute (I Won't Cry), and, er, symphonic keys the next (Universe). Actually, the most 'progressive' part of the album is the first three tracks, which segue into a rather good 13-minute piece, after which things go downhill a little, I'm afraid. Stone's Mellotron use is pretty sparse, to be honest; opener Universe has choir and flute parts, with cellos on Everytime, while closer How Do You Stand has some fairly overt choirs, but that appears to be it.

I've seen references to a second Symphonic Slam album, which may have appeared under the name Timo Laine, but I don't seem to be able to trace them at the moment. Symphonic Slam itself is... OK. Nothing spectacular, although the first half of the first side is pretty good, while the Mellotron work is unremarkable, with Laine's guitar synth taking up most of the bandwidth. File under 'also-rans'.