Monday, June 15, 2009

Album of the Day

The Flower King, by Roine Stolt (1994): Never has a solo album launched so much (at least until The Tangent has been around a while more). Stolt had been a member of Swedish proggers Kaipa in the 1970s, but after that had largely worked outside of the prog world. With this solo album (according to his bio):

that tried to unleash the forces of good in the negative, violent, aggressive, competitive music business of today. Reinstate the old hippie ideals, lyrically and musically.
That's a very good description. The music is prime symphonic prog goodness. The lyrics - eh, I could do without, honestly, as the hippie nonsense comes across a bit thick. Nonetheless it was the strong response to this album that led to Stolt forming a band of the same name and proceeding to become one of the biggest (and most prolific!) names in modern progdom.

No comments: