HASSE FRÖBERG & MUSICAL COMPANION

Parallel Life GlAssville

Flower Kings guitarist embarks on crazed prog adventure.

It takes a certain amount of bravery to start an album with a 21-minute, multi-part song, and no small amount of faith in the listener’s attention span. For Hasse Fröberg, however, this is familiar, well-charted territory. 2015’s HFMC saw him leaping from genre to genre with lunatic abandon, often within the space of a few bars, and new album Parallel Life adventures even further. Take that title track opener. It explores all sorts of traditional prog rock geography, from Yes (no surprise there) to Emerson,

Lake & Palmer and Genesis, from fluid stretches of keyboard wibble to stuttering riff, then confounds expectations by throwing in bits that could be Boston or Ben Folds. It flips mood and timbre frequently, often without warning, and it should be a mess. It isn’t. Everywhere you listen, the ambition is matched by the output. The arrangements are smart and laser-focused. The songwriting is strong enough that the devilish changes of direction don’t let the momentum flounder, and the whole thing is played with enormous affection for the source material and a great deal of glee. Serious prog isn’t often as much fun as this.