Roine Stolt’s The Flower King ~ Manifesto Of An Alchemist

 

You’ve heard Roine Stolt’s many incarnations in quite a few bands. This time, he’s back, sounding like the band that put him where he is today. The Flower Kings were a new progressive rock band that had a sound similar to Genesis. Genesis were new & fresh when they came out, and so were the Flower Kings. This new album by Roine Stolt (the leader of the Flower Kings) seems to go back to that wonderful sound. Roine is a bit more experimental with the music, and it all sounds great. There are 10 songs on this album with the longest song being 12 minutes and 32 seconds. That song would be “High Road”. This song really having that Flower Kings sound. This would probably be my favorite song. “The Alchemist” seems to strive for a more jazzy feel with a sax playing along. This is not one of my favorite songs, as this is more of an improvisation song. “The Spell Of Money” is another great song that once again has that great Flower Kings sound and also finishes off the album. There are 4 short (about 4 minutes or less) that went by very quickly, but, were very enjoyable. Roine plays guitars, synths & lead vocals on this album. The other musicians are Marco Minnemann on drums, Michael Stolt on bass & vocals,  Jonas Reingold on bass, Rob Townsend on sax, Max Lorentz on Hammond B3 & vocals, Zach Kamins on Moog synthesizer, Hans Froberg & Nad Sylvan on vocals. Once again, Roine Stolt has hit a home run with this release. I give this 5 out of 5 Music Guru stars.