ROINE STOLT

What a treat for a meloman! Great instrumental album - that is highly recommended for those who loves the Flower Kings in the era when they did produce lovely melodic prog. How i wish, and i know i`m not alone, how i wish mr. Roine to release Hydrophonia part II. To me this one and album by Tomas Bodin - Sonic Boulevard, are true Swedish Gems of modern instrumental prog, which unfortunatelly so underrated... It has fabulous atmosphere with James on drums and some lovely soprano sax playing. with this authentic pastoral atmosphere. I love first half of the album more, i think if it would fit Vinyl format - 45mins - it`ll just be more brighter! But it`s just my humble opinion. Anyway this album deserve 5 stars!! (especially when you compare it to such fillers like "Wall Street Voodoo" & (bit better but still far from this one "Manifesto of Alchemist") There`s another 5 star album in Roines Stolt discography - " The Flower KING" which is more well known in proggers circle. Come on, listen to Hydrophonia!

There's a fine line between a Roine Stolt album and a Flower Kings album. The awkward title of 'The Flower King: Manifesto of an Alchemist,' is a result of Inside Out marketing. However, all of the musicians featured on The Flower Kings album 'Waiting for Miracles' are also featured on this album, with the exception of drummer Mirko De Maio. Instead, the great Marco Minnemann plays drums on 'The Flower King: Manifesto of an Alchemist.' Despite the presence of incredible musicians, 'The Flower King: Manifesto of an Alchemist' is borderline unlistenable. Every song is dull and meanders aimlessly. Listening to this album feels like a chore. The instrumentation sounds empty and insipid. Not once do I find myself enjoying the music found on here. Overall, 'The Flower King: Manifesto of an Alchemist' is a disappointing release that would unfortunately indicate where The Flower Kings would go with their music.

Roine Stolt, famously known as the lead guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter for The Flower Kings, had been involved in the music industry long before he formed The Flower Kings. Over twenty years, in fact. He started his music career in his teens as the lead guitar player for Kaipa, one of the great Swedish progressive rock bands of the 70s. He appeared on the first three Kaipa albums: the self-titled debut, 'Inget Nytt Under Solen,' and 'Solo.' Stolt later regrouped with the original members of Kaipa and formed a group under the name Kaipa Da Capo in 2014. In May 1979, Stolt left Kaipa to pursue a solo career. He released some Hall & Oates-sounding albums in the 80s that weren't well received. It wasn't until the release of 'The Flower King' in 1994 that Roine Stolt achieved great success. It was on this record where Stolt returned to the genre that he excels at most, which is progressive rock. Due to the title, the personnel, and the overall sound of the album, many people, including myself, regard 'The Flower Kings' as the first Flower Kings album. The only critical Flower Kings musicians who are absent on 'The Flower King' are keyboardist Tomas Bodin, who was a longtime friend of Stolt, and original Flower Kings bassist and brother of Roine, Micheal Stolt. Both musicians were the missing pieces of the jigsaw that would eventually fall into place on the first proper Flower Kings album, 'Back in the World of Adventures.' Despite their absence, I appreciate that Stolt filled their roles, as it is his solo album. While Stolt is known primarily for his virtuosic guitar playing, he is also a fine keyboard and bass player, as evidenced by his performance on 'The Flower King.' As for the rest of the musicians featured on this album, Jaime Salazar plays drums (along with legendary percussionist Hasse Bruniusson) and Hasse Fröberg sings lead vocals on the first and last track, the title track and "Scanning the Greenhouse," respectively. Soprano saxophone from Ulf Wallander is featured on "The Pilgrim's Inn" and "Humanizzimo." Stolt is credited under two pseudonyms on 'The Flower King': Dexter Frank Jr. and Don Azzaro.

The album opens with the The Flower Kings anthem, the title track. "The Flower King" is pure joy and happiness, something we need more of in this world, and now more than ever. The title track is comprised of three parts: (1) The main pop song in the beginning, (2) an extended guitar and keyboard solo section, and (3) a reprise of the pop song. Roine Stolt's lead guitar playing throughout is tasty. The guitar and keyboard interplay during the solo section demonstrates Roine Stolt's incredible talent as a multi-instrumentalist. Hasse Fröberg's contrasting high vocals are pleasing, especially when he riffs at the end. His voice reminds me of a ballsier Jon Anderson, especially when he sings during rockier contexts. "Dissonata" is the antithesis of the opening title track. The music is in 7/8 and is dark and dissonant, which is probably why the song is titled "Dissonata," which means "dissonant" in Latin. "Dissonata," like "The Flower King," contains an interesting jam that acts as the centerpiece of the song.

"The Magic Circus of Zeb" is an instrumental piece that allows Stolt to demonstrate his guitar, keyboard, and bass prowess. The first couple minutes of the track are fast-paced, whereas the improvisational midsection has a half-time feel. Stolt's guitar soloing is emotive during this particular section. I've always felt that Roine Stolt never got enough recognition as a guitar hero, because (as a guitarist myself) the virtuosity of his playing is unbelievable. Unfortunately, because he's in a progressive rock band, that seems to have hindered him from the success I think he deserves.

"Close Your Eyes" is the most subdued song on 'The Flower King.' It provides a pleasant foil to what came before and what will come. In a vacuum, "Close Your Eyes" doesn't affect me much. However, I see its value in the context of 'The Flower King.' The interplay between Stolt's lead guitar and Ulf Wallander's saxophone is sonically complementary on "The Pilgrims Inn." Stolt's guitar tone is piercing and sustains each note beautifully. The brief acoustic guitar piece at the end of "The Pilgrim's Inn" is soothing as it transitions the listener into the heavier coda.

"The Sounds of Violence" is an aptly titled piece, for the music is belligerent. The coda is reflective, ushering the listener into the 20-minute pièce de résistance of 'The Flower King,' "Humanizzimo." "Humanizzimo" consists of six parts: a. "Twilight Flower," b. "The Messenger," c. "The Nail," d. "Only Human," e. "This is The Night," and f. "The Flower of Love." The vintage mellotron during "Twilight Flower" creates a haunting atmosphere for the music to crescendo over. The music shifts to a ragtime feel during "The Messenger." The music and lyrics of "The Nail" are emotionally moving as it describes the mindlessness of war with allusions to the crucifixion of Christ. I love the verse and chorus juxtaposition during "Only Human," though I do love Daniel Gildenlöw's vocal contributions on the 'Meet the Flower Kings' DVD a bit more. "This is The Night" has a gothic quality and revisits themes from "Twilight Flower." "The Flower of Love" starts subdued, and then the music climaxes with Roine Stolt's passionate vocals and guitar soloing. The last minute of "Humanizzimo" is hauntingly ambient. The closing track, "Scanning the Greenhouse," acts as the end credits if 'The Flower King' were a movie. The chorus of the opening title track is reprised. I'm glad Roine Stolt decided to reprise that theme, as I can't get enough of it. In a way, it's The Flower Kings' mantra before they properly formed.

In conclusion, 'The Flower King' is a beautiful pseudo-debut Flower Kings album. Because it's a Roine Stolt solo album, there are more guitar solos and jams than one would find on a Flower Kings album. I'm not complaining, but others may prefer the tightly structured pieces Stolt would go on to write with The Flower Kings. Nevertheless, 'The Flower King' is basically a Flower Kings record, more so than any other Roine Stolt solo album. Without this, who knows if The Flower Kings would even exist. Now that's a terrifying thought. If I did have one minor complaint, while "Humanizzimo" is a solid epic with spectacular moments throughout, it does sound disjointed. This is an aspect of Roine Stolt's writing that would significantly improve over time. The first 20+ minute Flower Kings track, "Stardust We Are," has a perfect flow that "Humanizzimo" somewhat lacks. I also think that the jamming on 'The Flower King' aren't as strong as the jamming on The Flower Kings' records. However, that's a matter of taste, as 'The Flower King' is more improvisational than the meticulously written-out Flower Kings albums.

There's two albums in Roine Stolt's discography where you could have a little debate as to whether it's really just a Roine Stolt album (or a "Roine Stolt's The Flower King") album, or whether it's a de facto Flower Kings album that happens to be under Roine's name. The first of those is, of course, The Flower King - the initial project where the core personnel decided to take the material on the world and in the process of doing so forged themselves into the first Flower Kings lineup.

This is the second one - which is either Stolt's first solo album since Wall Street Voodoo from 2005 or, looked at another way, a Flower Kings album reduced under a different, slightly clunky project name as a result of Tomas Bodin's reluctance to return to the fold. Sure, much of the material here is actually just played by Roine himself as a multi-instrumentalists, with other personnel dipping in here and there in a guest capacity - but on the other hand, a good chunk of the folk here would go on to be part of the lineup which eventually just reasserted their claim to the name of the Flower Kings once it became apparent that Bodin wasn't going to come back.

Musically speaking, it feels a lot like Stolt's been influenced by his collaborations with his Transatlantic buddy Neal Morse, with Lost America in particular sounding like the sort of thing which might have appeared in a mid-1990s Spock's Beard album from that mildly more commercially-leaning period they had from Beware of Darkness to Day For Night). One thing both Stolt and Morse have long had in common is an appreciation for the sunny sounds of 1960s pop, and Baby Angels feels like a delving into that. On the whole, the Yes influences that had been prominent on prior Flower Kings releases are dialled back somewhat in favour of a tour of prog sounds ranging from fusion to more traditional Flower Kings fare.

On the whole, it's an appealing release but not an exceptional one - something which Flower Kings fans doubtless appreciated when it emerged, but which has perhaps been eclipsed a little by the reformation of the Flower Kings proper.

If we had any question as to who the Monarch was here...

I'm not going to necessarily shy away from the fact that I'm younger, but at a fresh 28 years old I am as old as this album before us, which, given the broad subject matter of Progressive Rock, is still a relatively new release. Of course, we don't usually look at media that is nearly 30 years old in this lens, but it's somewhat relevant. What really drives home the age of this album is its and my relationship to ProgArchives. I've been posting reviews for less than a year now and the most recent review for this album was posted 5 years ago. I don't exactly know what all that means to you, but I do take it as an honor to 'look' at it with 'fresh eyes'; and interestingly enough I would figure it's been about 5 years since I've listened through this, Roine Stolt's pre-Flower Kings and therefore timely solo effort--I often forget it's not his debut. Being just a year before the steady stream of Flower-Kings-proper releases, this features now-familiar names: Hasse Fröberg on shared lead vocal responsibilities; [less familiar here, but] Ulf Wallander, the guest-spot sax player since the beginning until the present; [similarly consistently guest-spotted] Hasse Bruniusson on drums and percussion; and I would think most famously Jaime Salazar on drums and percussion [his involvement ended in 2001].

Most recognizably showing his lineage from Yes and their symphonic ilk is the introduction of "The Flower King", our title track and album opener. And this just is The Flower Kings; this is what they sound like. It's classic Symphonic Prog fitted for a more modern audience by a [slightly] younger generation of excellent musicians. At 10 minutes in length, it is our first of three mini-epics. As the verse continues, its age and timeframe of recording is very evident. Hard to explain, but you'll get the picture. I guess you could say some of the melodies and swelling instrumentation is in the least bit 'dated'. The riff around minute 3 is also of a very different time and nature than today, but I think ye fans of contemporary guitarsmith Steve Vai may find something familiar here, as I did. If you somehow don't know it yet, Roine is a very capable guitarist himself and, I would say thusly, surrounds himself with comparably apt musicians. The drumming of Jaime is exemplary, for instance. The Yes comparisons can be made increasingly here, as Roine solos over warm, bright accompaniment (he plays the keys here as well). And in the spacious aftermath of that bombast, we can also hear the natural lineage from Genesis clearly for the first time (around minute 7).

As the title implies, "Dissonata" starts off low and creeping, slowly opening up with warm but wary synth, finally building to the verse by minute 1. This track has a great beat and, as I've certainly come to expect from him, everything is well mixed and full. One of those great moments in which you have to come to grips that most all instrumentation and layers are provided by this single person. Impressive to say the least. I don't entirely understand how one so masterfully combines darkness with optimism, as I'm not a composer haha, but again, just excellent work here. And in classic Roine fashion, he is equally a compositional master in his proficiency of holding our attention throughout 10+ minute tracks (my mind can't not go to the 30+ minute epic, "The Truth Will Set You Free", released 8 years later). Once again, he also shows off his virtuosic guitar skill around minute 6. Beautiful and sweet notes... that fall away to the dissonance we were so wary of from the start. This segment feels a bit like a King Crimson lift. A nice nod, I'll say. Overall, a surefire highlight.

If I wasn't impressed enough by Roine's overwhelming muscianship, "The Magic Circus of Zeb" is lifting that veil: He plays this incredible keyboard solo at the frontend that blew me away... Also, some synthy[?...] goodness that should totally appeal to mid-to-late-70s Zappa fans! A mimicry of mallets? It does say he played percussion starting on this track (including the excellent drum performance here!!!)... This is then followed by this emotive, beautiful guitar solo. Good God, this man has it. Yet another must-hear for Symphonic Proggers like me. Goodness gracious... This is followed by the balladic and soft "Close Your Eyes"--the lowlight, as I purposefully did not bold it as I do for album highlights. In comparison to the prior 3, not a whole lot to see here--I should have figured the album wouldn't ring out 'perfect'. Oh well haha. [Wild that without this track, my personal average would have brought the album to a 4.5/5.0]

Our final mini-epic, at just over 9 minutes, "The Pilgrims Inn", is our true introduction to the other drummer here, Hasse Bruniusson: an excellent percussionist. This track also features the aforementioned Ulf Wallander on soprano saxophone. It brings to mind some Fusion bands like Passport mixed with a familiar darkness early enough featured by King Crimson, especially via the more established Red-era lineup. Really beautiful stuff, but again dark and moody. Around minute 7, a super memorable theme starts off on acoustic guitar. A sort of melody that makes me think of European Folk or an image of a troubadour. Killer track. I think it is really nicely juxtaposed by the next, "The Sounds of Violence", which feels like a preparation for wartime... Very sinister key melody. These are the moments I really get excited about for Roine. For instance, I now think back to Transatlantic's latest, The Absolute Universe. The favorite for me there was the very dark and very obviously Stolt-penned "Owl Howl". At just shy of 6 minutes, "Sounds..." is pretty much a perfectly incapsulated Prog song for me.

As we come to the close of this landmark release, "Humanizzimo" is our 21-minute epic. Ulf returns to the sax, and I guess it's just the fact that it's a soprano(?), but I can't help but think of Passport. Could be something to that... Our first shift is around minute 4, from swelling, personal beauty to... Rockabilly?! haha. Nothing is truly surprising to me at this point. [It would be at this point, nearing the album's close, that of course the disclaimer I frequently feel is on my mind: Roine Stolt's voice is very likely an acquired taste. I like it. But it is not a standard voice. I think he's quite talented vocally. It's just that his tone... You get it.] It is also for the first time in his known-by-me career where I must wonder about his personal faith: Is Roine a Christian? It would certainly make his relationship with Neal Morse in Transatlantic all the more sound/logical. Lyrically, this track talks of upright morals, facing temptations and a certain call to repentance. Then the lyric turns most specifically to actual regard to Jesus Christ himself: "With the blood of Jesus on the nail / we turn the balance on a scale / In pain and fearless suffering / lies a message from the King of Kings". He speaks of spiritual warfare, of heaven ("enter in the hall of grace"), of an apparent personal relationship with God the Father ("safe in your daddy's arms"?) and that love is "all in his name". Seems like a dead ringer, if you ask me. Around minute 17 or so, a very clear homage to Yes's latter-day epic "Awaken" can be heard... This was driving me nuts and it took me a while to figure out what was being referenced. See "Awaken" around 8:20 and onward with Wakeman's grandiose church organ. And wow... the ending on this... Gee-whizz! haha! And now, speaking of endings, we get to our album finale, "Scanning the Greenhouse", which feels like another less pointed homage to Yes. Hasse Fröberg returns on shared lead vocals here. As an opposite bookend, we get a return of "The Flower King" refrain. Another great number and therefore a great way to finish out this very very, most excellent album.

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.

I get the feeling that this album had been germinating in Mr. Stolt's mind for many years.

Over the years, we Flower Kings fans have easily recognized his early prog influences such as Yes, Genesis, Crimson and ELP (among others), and his Gibson Les Paul guitar styling has frequently had a very Steve Howe-ish sound. But just as Howe was deeply influenced by some seemingly unlikely suspects like Chet Atkins and Bob Dylan, Stolt bares his soul (no pun intended) on Wall Street Voodoo with nods to some of the early blues-based guitar masters of the late 60's.

For me, this album answers a lot of questions about why Stolt has used certain effects, riffs or political lyrics in recent TFK outings where I thought they sounded a bit awkward or out of sync with the rest of a particular song or album concept. (I'm thinking of the rockier "Don't Let The Devil In", "Monkey Business", "Adam and Eve" and "Genie in a Bottle"; or the more political "Thru the Walls", "Devil's Playground" and "Slave to Money"). In the past, I always attributed it to the quirkier Zappa side of Stolt; but now I suspect it was just Stolt trying to let these important root yearnings of his out to see a little light of day. Even the name of the group and many of their album covers have evoked the "flower power" era of rock 'n' roll.

There's a lot of great music here folks, with inventive guitar solos galore. Just as some blues and classic rock sounds tend to creep into the occasional TFK composition, Stolt has a little trouble keeping some prog from peering around the edges of this latest album of rhythm and blues (and that's just fine with me!). And I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that part of the reason that you can't totally escape the TFK sound here is because along with Stolt and then-TFK drummer Marcus Liliequist, you have bassist Jonas Reingold(?) masquerading as "Victor Woof", and keyboardist Tomas Bodin(?) as "Slim Pothead" - am I right, Roine?

The first disc starts off with four really good tunes - cool lyrics, catchy refrains, and lots of layered guitar. I love the slide guitar (a la Duane Allman and George Harrison) that shows up in many of the songs. The middle few songs on this disc get a little repetitive for me, and can get pretty angry-sounding. But the disc finishes nicely with a Joni Mitchell cover ("Sex Kills") and "Outcast".

He does more voice effects on the second disc, and quite honestly, I've just never been a big fan of that. So while I absolutely LOVE "Remember", "Hotrod" and "People That Have the Power...", I don't care for portions of "The Unwanted" (great instrumental section, though), the Lou Reed-ish/near-rap of "It's all about Money", or the sittin'-on-my-front-porch-strummin'-my-guitar "Mercy" (mercifully short in duration).

So, as with many TFK albums, one is left with an album that's filled about 85% with just awesome, creative music - dare I say, the best being made today (even when it's not prog!). But then you have to endure the less-than-optimal quirkier stuff that the artist feels compelled to do, but may not quite jibe with your interests. Thus my 4-star rating.

If you are an exclusive prog rock listener, you should probably pass this album up. But if you are an overall rock music lover, or if you have an open mind to music, and especially if you are a fan of Swedish guitar-god and hippie-wannabe Roine Stolt, this album is INDISPENSABLE in understanding and enjoying more of this man's great music. It's far out, man.

— First review of this album —

One is a borderline synth pop song and the other is a borderline jazz piece. This single is back and forth, it's hard to keep track of where we are going with this listen. Thankfully both of these songs are on an easier to understand studio album titled 'The Lonely Heartbeat'. I can see what Roine was trying to do here but nothing really adds up, Big Daddy isn't a song I'm too fond of, it has the feel of a typical synth pop beat from the 80s that I'm not crazy about on here. White Men of NYC is a confusing track, it's slow and jazzy and just... kind of works? I can't understand this too much either, I do enjoy this track but it's very confusing. So, one song, I'm not a fan of, and the second one, I am. This is the most confusing single I've listened to. I'm not sure whether it's good or bad, but its definitely not great, or a masterpiece.

Utopia is a great EP by Roine Stolt of 'The Flower King's'. Both tracks have Roine's unmistakable voice, guitar playing, and writing style. Thankfully we are saved by Tomas Bodin's keyboard playing, his solos are great and so are Roine's. The writing style is kind of like Yes, Genesis, and some soft Rock bands thrown in the mix (such as; Toto, Tears For Fears, etc.). This is a very good EP, and it does show where Roine Stolt was going to end up. The feel and structure of both songs are nice, but are both songs incredible? No, they are good but nothing special. Overall the EP might have good songwriting and a very prog nature, but it isn't very well recorded. It could've been slightly better recorded even for the time it was released, but Roine wasn't under InsideOut or any real record label to help push this along. Either way, this is a good EP but its nothing to get too excited about.

Fantastic landscapes of Scandinavia and majestic mascarade of Edvard Grieg`s personages.. No politics & crimes, no rights and wrongs only true fairy watercolors of sound. Its different from the Flower King and it`s so great on it`s own - lovely tembres, mellow "90s Prog" era sound. I do enjoy sound of soprano sax here as well. Well crafted melodies. I can see clearly Roine sending us his message from the wooden cottage that he calls "Cosmic Lodge", playing his old guitar near the fjord. I see the rare boat passing by... and than all of a sudden strange creatures comes to life... My favs are first 4 tracks! less interesting Seahorse.. but anyway it can`t spoil the whole atmosphere of the good instrumental album. 5 starts!