But the Detroit strike is in many ways historic, uniting all of the newspaper trades against two union-busting media giants, and these songs represent an interesting document of this struggle. One hopes they will soon be sung in celebration of a victory. Thereafter, they will have historic interest. T he bulk of the album, however consists of Finland Station performances, which are quite enjoyable on their own and without specific reference to the strike. These 13 songs could easily have been separately released.
T here are seven members of the group, including five vocalists.
The band accompanies itself on a wide array of instruments including guitar, trombone, drums, flute and concertina. All of the Finland Station songs recorded here, however, are written by others. A s its name suggests, Finland Station devotes itself to an interesting assortment of old and new songs of the Left. The arrangements are sometimes a tad too ambitious, but always worth listening to. Each selection is a quality song and most listeners will find at least some of them to be new to their ears.