ROINE STOLT’S THE FLOWER KING

Flower Kings mainman re-examines his roots.

An alchemist seeks two things: the elixir of life and the ability to transmute base metal into gold. Stolt’s latest offering suggests that the answer to both lies in a relentless and tireless search for prog perfection. Since the last Flower Kings album Desolation Rose in 2013, he’s created new material with Transatlantic and Jon Anderson, as well as forming a new supergroup, The Sea Within.

Given this frenetic, creative pace, it might be reasonable to expect this new album to be a modest affair. Rather – as Stolt’s band name suggests – this project refers back to his seminal solo 1994 album The Flower King. Manifesto Of An Alchemist is an examination of the components that propelled Stolt into arguably his greatest and most creative era.

…Alchemist represents Stolt – to borrow a painting metaphor – working more like a watercolour artist than a portrait painter. Stolt tries to capture each song’s shifting essence, rather than creating his effects layer-on-layer. This could have turned …Alchemist into a rough-and-ready album. Rather, it makes it more immediate and energetic. What it loses in slickness, it gains in grit. Put together in less than two months, this is reflected in its rocky and unmassaged style, especially Stolt’s mostly unadorned guitar work.

Over 10 minutes, Lost America places Stolt’s soloing over gritty, groovy riffing from Jonas Reingold’s Pastorius-like bass and Marcus Minnemann’s drums. If Stolt has always had a gift for jazzy prog, this song’s mood is a million miles away from the lush extravagance of, say, For The Love Of Gold from Banks Of Eden. The deliberately muddy vocals as Stolt sings about the ‘same old treadmill’ capture a disappearing America beautifully.

Lest anyone think that Stolt has abandoned his trademark epic über-prog, the 13-minute High Road uses tripled vocals and precise keyboard and guitar layers that match anything he’s done in his career. What is fresh, even on this prog-out, are the sudden tonal shifts. Just as one expects High Road to fly off in ever wilder directions, Stolt and co take the mood down into simple acoustic chord progressions.

There are some tracks, including the spiky jazz-inflected title track and spaced-out Six Thirty Wake-Up, that may take a little while to bed-in ( pardon the pun). Those accustomed to Stolt massaging his material to within an inch of its life might find these tunes a little too jammed and relaxed. Manifesto Of An Alchemist, however, indicates some exciting developments in Stolt’s busy schedule. There is a simplicity, a joy and an honesty that bodes well as he heads deeper into his seventh decade.

IMMEDIATE AND ENERGETIC, GAINING

IN GRIT.