Not content with conquering parts of Outer Mongolia and the Sonora state of Mexico, the Leningrad Cowboys set their sights on space with this album. Though universal domination eluded them this isn't a bad effort. It produced 2 Finnish singles, Jupiter Calling and Where's the Moon. Leningrad is the stand-out track though, a lament for a place that was no more.

The album was the last to feature most of the classic line-up. By the time their next album, Mongolian Barbecue appeared the following year Jore Marjaranta, the lead singer and the guitarist Ben Granfelt had left to pursue the Guitar Slingers.

My take is this is a very important album in the history of the band though not for the right reasons. Looking from the outside, I think the band saw this album as a kind of breakthrough album coming on the tails of the Red Army project. If it had sold in great quantities outside Finland it would have catapulted the band into rock stardom territory. But it did not and that has always been the problem with the band. They don't sell as many albums as they ought to. Never have done but hopefully they will. The result was a fracturing of the classic band line up though to be fair the musicians who have followed haven't been bad.

If people with but a passing interest in the band actually bought a CD, a download, whatever, then I'm sure more projects would follow. As it is, as of 2015, we are down to maybe an album release every 5 years which really isn't enough. It just feels like a group petering out. That is wrong as at the end of the day their music deserves to be heard by as many people as possible as it just can't be made or replicated by anyone else.

Frank Uhle (SPV General Manager who released their last album, Buena Vodka) commented when signing the band to his label: "It's a pleasure and honour to have these true rock'n'roll legends teaming up with SPV. I'm fully convinced, together we will bring the guys back on the map again and up to the high rating in the Rock Circus, they deserve."

That says it all. A band who gets millions of hits on YouTube should really be selling more records as it is that good.

We can all do our bit by investing a little bit in this awesome group.

© Paul Page, Lenin Imports, 2015

TRACK LISTING:

01/ where's the moon
02/ space tractor
03/ universal fields
04/ jupiter calling
05/ galina
06/ leningrad
07/ ulan bator girls
08/ brave new world
09/ nadja
10/ matushka
11/ zastarovje
12/ l.a. doga beach
13/ little green man

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