INVENTION OF KNOWLEDGE

A combination of Jon Anderson and Roine Stolt. It should not surprise anyone, but still it�´s very nice to them both together at last. Well, it is no secret that Stolt is an avid fan of Anderson. He went as far as dedicate a whole album (The Flower King) to Anderson in 1994, long before they ever met. And anyone who has ever heard a Flower Kings album will know how strongly Yes influenced their music. So I guess that a collaboration was a natural thing to happen. Stolt even asked some of his colleagues from TFK to give a hand (the ever present bassist Jonas Reingold and current drummer Felix Lehrmann, plus his brother and ex TFK Michael Stolt for a couple of tracks). Top swedish players Tom Brislin (Spiraling) and Lalle Larsson (Karmakanic, Agents of Mercy) help along on the keyboards. And Invention of Knowledge is the result.

The music here is inspired and convincing, almost like 70�´s Yes backing a Jon Anderson solo album (instead of Anderson rejoining 70�´s Yes, get the difference?). So don�´t expect long instrumental passages or anything too different, nor explicit displays of virtuosity. Everything here works for the songs. Stolt was always heavily influenced by Steve Howe and it shows, in a good way. In fact, the album sounds very fresh and exciting most of the time, with the excellent backing band providing Anderson with a lush, symphonic and creative tapestry of sounds for his unique voice. The first half of the CD is specially good, while for a time it seemed to me that the second half dragged on a bit, but a few more spins I�´m enjoying it all. This is surely a grower.

At least on studio, Anderson�´s voice is in top form. Stolt takes a back seat here, providing basically multi guitars parts that remind me of (who else?) Howe, but is still very much Stolt himself, a brilliant and creative musician. In fact, keyboards, bass and everything else sounds like a mixture of classic Yes and early Flower Kings. The difference is that instead of Yes copycats, everything here turned out as a truthful, heartfelt homage to their heroes.

As a whole I really loved this album. It�´s high on my top ten list for 2016, without any doubt. It�´s nothing new, really, but it�´s brilliant music anyway. Far and far superior than anything Yes has done for a long, long time. If you�´re a fan of them (and of Anderson in particular) you�´ll be delighted with Invention Of Knowledge. It�´s probably Anderson�´s best solo album to date. And probably the best Yes sounding record ever that was not played by Yes themselves.

Rating: 4.5 stars. Highly recommended!!