SOLO

In 1977 Kaipa were one of the bands who were tackling the tricky dilemma of how to make their music more accessible whilst at the same time not outright sacrificing their progressive spirit. Of course, many bands would eventually just throw in the towel and sell out - naming no names here - but a few managed to find a compromise position which would point the way towards neo-prog.

Kaipa, on Solo, manage to cut down the song lengths without sacrificing progressive experimentation admirably, the secret to their success mainly being a reconfiguration of their sound to make best use of their secret weapon. That weapon, of course, was Roine Stolt - both in his guitar playing, which is more central to the band's sound here than ever before, and in his compositions, which are particularly prominent on this album.

Proving himself more than capable of mastering sounds used by the likes of Andy Latimer, Steve Hackett, and Brian May, as well as having an impressive number of his own tricks up his sleeve, Stolt is truly the star of this album, which retains the overall Kaipa atmosphere of uplifting, melodic Swedish prog but presents it in digestible, bite-sized chunks. If only more top-tier prog bands had adapted to changing fashions as adeptly as Kaipa had, prog might have been much healthier going into the 1980s.