Wednesday, 4 July 2018

Universal Hippies – Evolution of Karma (CD)


Imagine if you throw a portion of well cooked vintage Wishbone Ash into a blender and then sprinkle a bit of Joe Satriani and Steve Vai on top. You then sift the brew to get rid of all unnecessary shredding. Throw the shredding away and keep all that good tasty stuff. Pour it into a mold and make a nice CD of it. Voila! You’ve got the "Evolution of Karma"! This is the second CD by Greek instrumental rockers Universal Hippies and even though I really enjoyed their debut, “Mother Nature Blues”, this one takes it a step further in terms of tasteful melodies and great song material. There’s not a weak moment on this album and it has a great flow. This is definitely an album album, an album you listen to from beginning to end. The flow from one song to another is just sublime and Stavros Papadopoulos’ guitar playing is nothing short of phenomenal. His feel and tone are just awesome. Not forgetting the highly tasteful rhythm section featuring bass player Jim Petridis and drummer Chris Lagios, who really lay down the perfect grooves for the brew. The mix, also by Stavros, is crisp and clear with a lot of nice ambience. Very analogue and very live sounding. This is an outstanding album, indeed and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s into the melodic instrumental side of Wishbone Ash or Satch, when he slows it down and get his melodic mojo working.
Janne Stark
Country: Greece
Year: 2018
Label: Grooveyard Records

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