THE FLOWER KING: MANIFESTO OF AN ALCHEMIST

What an unfortunately uneventful and uninspired album this is! The eighth solo studio effort by the leader and founder of The Flower Kings Roine Stolt is sincerely a mess, with loads of boring ideas that are taken nowhere by the otherwise excellent guitar player, songwriter and vocalist. A very interesting cast of guests on this album, including bandmates Hasse Fröberg and Jonas Reingold, his brother Michael Stolt, a former member of TFK, then-future TFK keyboard player Zach Kamins, as well as Nad Sylvan, Rob Townsend, Max Lorentz and Marco Minnemann - normally with such a stellar lineup expectations would be quite high, also taking into consideration the beautiful cover art.

In reality, this 70-minute recording is an almost painful drag - from the meanderings of the instrumentalists and their seemingly directionless playing on several occasions, more notably on the longer songs, to the hardly memorable riffs and melodies, lacking much of the charisma and imagination that is usually associated with the bands in which Roine Stolt is featured. It has to be said that as a solo record of Stolt, it is fine to see him exploring the sides of his music that he would not have otherwise been able to with, say, The Flower Kings, or The Tangent (although the music is not that dissimilar), but this record is just too full of content that it becomes hard to even categorize it (maybe progressive sleep-inducing blues would be a fitting decription).

A big problem with 'Manifesto of an Alchemist' is the overstretching of the compositions, and a very good example would be the opening track 'Lost America' - a song that could have been much more enjoyable had it not been mixed up with several other ideas that hardly contribute to the overall listening experience, resulting in a mediocre mini-epic, full of wacky lyrics and somewhat tedious playing. The following track 'Ze Pawns' does not get better; In fact, it is even harder to get through as the 'ambient rock' tendency prevails once again, as is the case with the 12-minute 'High Road', another long song that is suffocated from its self-indulgent and directionless nature. 'Rio Grande' and 'The Alchemist' are the two instrumental tracks that are actually interesting and listenable, more experimental and adventurous sonically, but the rest of the album is, unfortunately, almost dreadful.

'Manifesto of an Alchemist' is unnecessarily long, boring, uninspiring, and sounds like a collection of B-sides and leftovers that have been reworked to not very satisfactory results. What could have been a very curious piece of modern prog, is in reality a disappointing addition to the excellent discography of Roine Stolt.