Album Title: The Flower King
Artist: Roine Stolt
Nationality: Swedish
Year: 1994
Subgenre: neo-prog
Player(s): Roine Stolt (Lead Vocals, Guitars, Bass, Keyboards, Percussion), Hasse Froberg (Vocals only on tracks 1 & 8), Hasse Brunisson/Jaime Salazar (Drums), Dexter Frank Jr (Keyboards, “electronics”), Don Azarro (Bass, Moog Taurus), Ulf Wallander (Sax)
Familiarity: Quite a bit, but the problem is that I haven't heard anything by the band in around 5 years so had forgotten most of their material. Even though this is a solo album
Favourite track(s): “Humanizzimo”
Why? It's the showpiece track of the album and really impressed on the two listens I gave it.
Least favourite track(s): None
Why? N/A
Any preconceptions prior to listening, whether good or bad? I knew this was a Roine Stolt solo album, but also knew that it served as a blueprint for the Flower Kings.
Factoids you'd like to share? Roine Stolt has a son named Peter Gabriel.
End impression: Maybe I wasn't in the mood for this album but the only song I really enjoyed was the almost final "Humanizzimo" which made up for the average feel of the rest.
Comments: I always knew that Roine Stolt's singing was always a key factor to getting into his music, but had forgotten how clean and somewhat processed the music can sound like, but then again when I like the songs I'd hardly notice this. I usually don't mind a processed sound as such, but usually don't always dig it on a prog rock record, but then again this is the 90s and it's modern prog which has different approaches from traditional prog. As said
“Humanizzimo” is a great 21 minute track that consists of various sections and genres and shows just how talented Roine Stolt as an artist is
Rating: 3.5 thanks to the "Humanizzimo" track.