"Nemesis" is the third album by Swedish melodic metal/hard rock band Midnight Sun, originally released in 2001. This is the first MS album with the Starbreaker, Allen & Lande mastermind Magnus Karlsson on guitar. Brilliant as usual. Pete Sandberg (Alien) does a great vocal performance, and the rhythm section and keys kill your ears and senses. No fillers, all tracks are good, including Europe's cover "Seven Doors Hotel".
For this project, members of the Flower Kings (guitarist Roine Stolt, bassist Jonas Reingold, and drummer Zoltan Csorsz) and one ex-member of Van der Graaf Generator (sax player David Jackson) team with the core of Parallel or 90 Degrees (singer/keyboardist Andy Tillison, guitarist Guy Manning, and keyboardist Sam Baine), hence the name of the group. Parallel, tangent – take a few seconds to figure it out. Stolt and Tillison share an undisputable love for old-school symphonic prog rock and epic songs. They indulge in both here. "In Darkest Dreams" is the main course, an eight-part, 20-minute suite that adds some of the Flower Kings' bright colors to Po90s usually darker (VDGG-esque) delivery.
Karmakanic is the project of The Flower Kings bassist Jonas Reingold.
This time, Jonas Reingold added plenty of musicians to help him make this album, a concept about the evolution of the universe. We are in the usual style of symphonic prog rock that doesn't shy away from the Jazz and the heavy prog which gives to the music both vintage and modern sound. It starts really in a big fashion with the epic "God The Universe and…." 24 minutes of pure symphonic prog going into different moods with crunchy guitars, delicate piano and that Jonas tasty fretless bass. The vocals are beautiful with a lot of vocalists contributing. "Higher ground" starts innocently but take a rather heavy twist in the middle to end peacefully with those vocals harmonies…
For Steve Hackett, his 26th studio album (a remarkable statistic of itself) is far more than merely a collection of quality tracks. It goes a lot deeper than this. “I love experimenting with sounds and ethnic instruments, and thereby taking my ideas into other musical territories, to go where I have not artistically been before. This is essentially British music but it's being developed in foreign soil, as it were.” 'At The Edge Of Light' represents the master guitarist's commitment and passion for a global perspective on the music he writes and performs.
Waiting for Miracles is the first long-player by the Flower Kings since 2013's Desolation Rose. It marks a return from exile for the Flower Kings after 2018's Waiting for an Alchemist - which was billed to Roine Stolt's the Flower King. Here Stolt, Hasse Fröberg, and Jonas Reingold are joined by new members keyboardist Zach Kamins and drummer Mirko DeMaio who are not, based on what is here, fully integrated into TFK's aesthetic. This is a band offering that contains the complex mood, textural, and color changes, intricate melodies, atmospheres, and dynamics that are at the heart of TFK's musical signature.
Waiting for Miracles clocks in at 85 minutes but showcases TFK in a more economical mode compositionally. That's not to say the band are writing pop songs; their music remains challenging prog rock that recalls the sound and feel of the band's first five records…
For this project, members of the Flower Kings (guitarist Roine Stolt, bassist Jonas Reingold, and drummer Zoltan Csorsz) and one ex-member of Van der Graaf Generator (sax player David Jackson) team with the core of Parallel or 90 Degrees (singer/keyboardist Andy Tillison, guitarist Guy Manning, and keyboardist Sam Baine), hence the name of the group. Parallel, tangent – take a few seconds to figure it out. Stolt and Tillison share an undisputable love for old-school symphonic prog rock and epic songs. They indulge in both here. "In Darkest Dreams" is the main course, an eight-part, 20-minute suite that adds some of the Flower Kings' bright colors to Po90s usually darker (VDGG-esque) delivery.