WALL STREET VOODOO

The Flower Kings frontman-cum-guitarist Roine Stolt, whose distinctive style marvelously combined David Gilmour's genial, warm mid-tempo and Frank Zappa's playful melody, tries to mix influences from the late 1960s and early 1970s blues-based bands with a modern feel. "A touch of yesterday, a touch of today," he said in an interview.

And that's what we can feel instantly from this latest solo effort by Stolt.

I consider myself of being so lucky that finally I bought this album, after deliberately gave several times chance up as the price was so high I felt that I couldn't afford it (but then again, it's a double disc outing, right?). But Stolt? I couldn't hardly avoid and ignore him. Alright then, US$ 27.39 wouldn't be a big deal. In short, when I did decide to get it three days ago I sent an SMS to my friend Gatot, who wrote a review here and with so much fanfare praise the album. I just hoped I wouldn't be disappointed.

"(You) won't be disappointed," Gatot answered.

Much of a convincing don't-worry-it's-ok words I just needed. For a while I was sure I saw him thrusting his fist into the air.

I believe him anyway. And he's right. From the first spin, starting from the opening track "The Observer", I was so hooked. My impression was that the songs are catchy and the mood Stolt put in them are so varied. Most of them were instantly accessible. I've been listening to both disc a dozen times now. And I put much time even more to see where they can get me to. As always, Stolt exposes much of cool guitar playing -- I can feel it everywhere but I don't see any showoffs. I think one might be reminded of The Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Santana, B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix... Unlike The Kings, the lyrics are not about the positive side of the world. But they're OK.

And one more plus thing: there's Neal Morse, ex-Spock's Beard frontman, contributes his vocal and Hammond B3 trademark playing.

As the other reviewers already said, this is not a progressive rock album. But Stolt unpretentiously offers in it a classy work from which we can see the other side -- an impressive one -- of his musical aspirations.

An excellent addition to any prog collection.

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