MINDREVOLUTIONS

It has taken me quite sometime - in real time scale: weeks - to solidify my thoughts about this new album by Kaipa. As in previous album review of the band, I mentioned that "Keyholder" was my first experience listening to the music of Kaipa. I did expect the follow up would sound the same or even better but I do not find it here with this album. In a nutshell, this album lacks coherence as compared to "Keyholder". Though, it's still an excellent stream of music that has truly favored my taste and has satisfied my mind. I might have been biased about it because I have been familiar with The Flower Kings music before and this album is very The Flower Kings-isque. For those who are not yet familiar with The Flower Kings, s/he might find this album a bit strange. But, I'm not saying that in order to enjoy this album you need a prerequisite of liking The Flower Kings - it may be the other way round: you enjoy Kaipa and willing to explore with The Flower Kings in your prog music journey.

In this album Hans Lundin writes most of the songs with some tracks (3) are co-written with Roine Stolt. It suffices to say the sheer influence of The Flower Kings in the music of Kaipa - a swedish band that was in the prog arena in the seventies and reformed back in 2002 with "Notes From The Past" album. The album and its follow up "Keyholder" were considered successful with some ripple effects which increase the sales of their seventies album. As in the previous album, Jonas Reingold plays his wonderful bass guitar. Ex Frank Zappa's drummer Morgan Ågren also join in this album plus two vocals by Patrik Lundström and Aleena.

The opening track "The Dodger" (8:09) reminds me to The Flower Kings with stunning guitar solo and floating music in style. The tempo of the song is slow-medium with a good combination of Patrik's voice, guitar and inventive bass lines. "Electric Leaves" (4:13) has a tiny influence of King Crimson at the beginning but when it continues with guitar solo and Aleena's vocal it sounds differently. "Shadows of Time" is a nice slow- medium tempo song with excellent guitar solo and powerful vocal by Aleena. "Mindrevolutions" (25:47) is a very well written epic, opened with singing verse by Aleena. It has strong influence by jazz, rock (through some riffs), combining excellent guitar solo, bass lines and keyboard work. Patrik contributes his singing as well throughout the track.

Definitely, this is not better than Kaipa's previous album "Keyholder". However, this album has all the qualities of an excellent musical creation in terms of composition (structure and arrangement), songwriting and overall performance. With mys experience listening only these two albums of Kaipa, I want to explore my collection with their early works as well. Recommended. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW