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Tomas Bodin - Pinup Guru CD (album) cover

PINUP GURU

Tomas Bodin

 

Symphonic Prog

3.46 | 90 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

diddy
Prog Reviewer
3 stars 3.5 Stars Actually

So this is another release from the Flower Kings family, meanwhile they're countless I guess. But this one is different and better than the usual FK family releases because it's not this reminiscent, maybe because Roine Stolt and his recognizable guitar playing is not featured on this one. Featured is Jonas Reingold on bass who does a brilliant job, just like always (and he's a very nice guy btw I once had the chance to talk to him), I really like his sound. On drums we have the very talented young Flower Kings drummer Zoltan Csörsz . It seems to be the dream of nearly every keyboarder to make at least one album with a trio lineup featuring keyboards, bass and drums. Tomas Bodin handles a lot of different elements and styles on this album wich are influenced by his move to a new neighborhood. He often took a small walk and heard a lot of different musical styles coming out of the houses. And he includes some of these experiences in many of the tracks.

The album is opened by a short church organ track called "Sodium regale" a nice and short introduction. It's followed by "What's going on", a 13 minute long highlight. Here you are introduced to the general style of the album for the first time. Maybe the best song on this album. The story for the next song is quite funny. The track is called "Me and Liz" meant is Liz Taylor and the idea behind this song and title is the fact that Tomas was married and divorced just as often as Liz Taylor. The following song "Halem Heat" was influenced by his first visit to New York, he wanted to create a kind of soundtrack for an agent movie and that's what it really sounds like. In the end there's a little break and it seems if we are in a bar with a piano player and dancing people all around, quite funny. Track number five, called "my beautiful neighbour" (or "The day I Saw My Beautiful Neighbour") is a short piano track for his real naighbour who is very attractive if we believe Tomas' word in the booklet. "New in the Hood" is what I said before, a journey through the different musical influences represented in his new neighborhood. The most funny part for sure is when the bavarian guy screems and dances to the bavarian folk music. Tomas uses german words which are very funny (at least for me as a german ) because he seems to know these folksy guys even better than I do. Another highlight on the album. "Blood" is a mysterious song, it could be music for an atmospheical horror movie or something similar. Right after there follows the second brief piano track "the ballerina is not geting closer", very slow but nice. "The last Eagle" creates an atmosphere of freedom with different kinds of whistling sounds and some great melodies before it gains more and more tempo just to end like it started, very atmospheric with keyboards tryng to imitate wind and an eagle followed by a slowly fading musical clock playing a kind of lullaby, very nice. The last song "The final swing" follows the style of the second song and marks a great end.

So if you like Keyboard orientated music with lots of different influences and don't mind some funny breaks this is a good album to purchase. It's different from all other Flower Kings (and family) releases. The only thing that could be reminiscent of them is Jonas Reingold because he has a very unique bass sound IMO.

diddy | 3/5 |

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