HYDROPHONIA

Roine Stolt is without doubt one of the most important figures in progressive rock movement in Sweden in the '70s soon becoming one of Europe leaders with The Flower KIngs. Composer, guitarist and singer Roine Stolt has his own style of playing the guitar since he was part in legendary Kaipa. With beautiful smooth blistering guitar chops remind me of Hackett combined with virtuosic escapades of Howe, Stolt is one of the most influencial musician in last decades in prog for sure. After living Kaipa in late 1979, he formed Fantasia with 2 albums in their pockets and then disbanded, Stolt optaing for a solo career. But, with the revival in the '90 of prog music and specially Sweden who was and is one of the leaders in this bussines, and because of this boom Stolt formed The Flower Kings and since early 90s this band was and is an instant succes world wide. Beside succesful career with TFK and colaborations with super group Transatlantic, his solo career was aswell marked with a new studio album named Hydrophonia, released in 1999. This album is instrumental with many memorable parts, for example the opening track Cosmic Lodge is absolutly killer, some very refreshing ideas here even the sound of the album overall doesn't apart much from TFK fame, even in places are some very faine spacey Gilmoureish guitar chops of the highest calibre.The music is varied, catchy and has all the ingredients to be fairly solid among prog fans, we have jazzy fusion passages, funky parts, spacey escapdaes all garnised with Stolt brightly ideas. Besides guita he is aswell a very acomplished keybord player, there are some really memorable parts on this album. All in all this album is good towards great, I really like it, is entertaining and has no low point.. 3.5 stars for sure, a well worthy release from this already legendary musician.