Roine stolt’s The Flower King
Manifesto Of An Alchemist
Equally at home with the pomp and ceremony of supergroups such as Transatlantic and the excellent The Sea Within or the more pastoral prog of the original Flower Kings records, Roine Stolt’s latest straddles both suitably psychedelic worlds.
Put together from notebooks and demos he’s collected over the past 15 years, it was reimagined, reworked and finally brought to life with the help of Nad Sylvan (Steve Hackett) and drummer Marco Minnemann (Steven Wilson) and others from the world of prog. It’s the songs where the album’s heart and magic lie, though. Unsurprisingly, a record that was pieced together over 15 years often veers crazily from clear-eyed, melody-laden prog: from the lovely and lilting Next To A Hurricane (which sounds like anything but), to the sprawling, dizzying wig-out of the keening The High Road. All of it is marked with Stolt’s melodious imprint, though, bound up in one man’s vision but for all to see.
Philip wilding