Bearing in mind the distinctive sound of his
guitar I wasn’t sure whether the inclusion of Roine Stolt in the Jonas
Reingold sideproject Karmakanic would be a good move. Knowing the fact that
Jonas was already surrounded by the likes of bandmates Tomas Bodin and Zoltan
Csörz, all Flower Kings buddies but Hasse Fröberg would be part of his solo
venture. You can say whatever you like but the endresult is pretty much a
Flower Kings album even when at times a more hardrock approach is imminent. To
enhance that metal effect Reingold has enlisted Göran Edman as the singer for
his project. Having worked with Yngwie Malmsteen between ’90 and ’92 Edman
is acclaimed as one of the leading rocksingers in Sweden and beyond. Still by
introducing a fair amount of acoustic intervals “Karmakanic” is by no
means a heavy metal album. In the titletrack ‘Entering the spectra’ for
instance you can find a heavy slice of pure jazz improvisation when fretless
bass, piano and guitar battle it out. The album is a concept album based on our world
no less than three thousand years from now yet although the subject is about
the future this doesn’t mean you get a spacerock album in the style of
Hawkwind. On the contrary as there are no ambient or spacey sections to be
found here ! Listening to ‘The spirit remains the same’ is like you’re
listening to an unreleased Kansas outtake but that’s before Jonas invites
you to share some of his ingenious bassplaying. Having the promo album as my
guidance I don’t have the detailed info as to who does what but if my ears
don’t fool me I guess ‘Cyberdust from Mars’ is sung by Roine Stolt which
enhances the FK feel even more. Should I be mistaken here please don’t send
the firing squad just yet ! The uptempo ‘Space race no 3’ has Edman sing
in the style of Gino Vannelli a timbre which I also encounter during the
commercial sounding ‘The man in the moon cries’, a pure daytime radio
favourite if ever I heard one. Jonas really shines in the pure fusion which is
‘One whole half’ enabling Zoltan to illustrate his versatile talents as
well. The track ‘Is this the end’ consists of three parts nicely fused
together. The opening section ‘The end’ is a wonderful ballad sung ever so
emotional by Göran. The second part ‘The light’ opens with a distorted,
crackled sound as if you’re listening to a battered vinyl album. This
gimmick can also be found on the latest Tomas Bodin solo album. The song then
evolves by means of a wonderful guitarsolo by Roine into a more uplifting
ballad ending in pure symphonic beauty with ‘The question’. Jonas Reingold
gets his solo spot during ‘Cello suite no 1 in G major’ by Bach where he
proves to be one of the most outstanding bassplayers around these days. Jeff
Berlin, Tony Levin, Chris Squire : you have ALL be warned ! The album closes
with ‘Welcome to paradise’ whose chorus kind of reminds me of Styx
although the backing sounds much rougher, much harder. The singing evolves
into kind of a theatrical approach which I don’t like very much whilst at
the end the keyboards slightly evoke ‘Flight of the bumble bee’ before
coming to an end. As you can imagine this is by no means a bad
album but being a Jonas Reingold solo effort personally I would have loved to
hear more of his bass antics. In that respect the new Flower Kings double
album “Unfold the future” holds more Reingold highlights than Karmakanic
has on offer. Maybe the songs will shed a different light once they are
performed live because that’s what’s currently being planned for the
summer of 2003 when material from Karmakanic, solo stuff from Tomas Bodin and
material from a new Bodin/Reingold/Csörz/Gildenlöw project will be taken on
the road. Reviewed by John 'Bobo' Bollenberg |
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