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‘Entering the spectra’ was amongst my personal favourites of the
year 2002, so it’s logical that the expectations for its successor
are very high. The first album of the Jonas Reingold project
excelled in originality, musical talent, strong compositions and a
very strong vocalist. And after a first listening to the new album,
the same quality pops up. Wheel Of Life has a more progressive
tendency and leans more towards the music of The Flower Kings, Yes
and Transatlantic. The debute album maybe contained somewhat more
catchy songs and is a bit more accessible, but from a pure musical
angle this ‘Wheel of Life’ may be even a bit better.
Masterplan Part I is one of these typical epic progtracks
from TFK, although the somewhat heavier approach from Reingold and
the charismatic voice of Edman lift the track to an extra dimension.
The melodic passages are linked seamlessly to the more aggressive
parts, until now, I don’t know any other band who gets this done in
this subtle way. For this track, Jonas called on Richard Anderson,
keyboard wizard and brain behind Time Requiem. The resulting duels
with Krister Jonsson are phenomenal. By the way, during the heavier
parts, you can perceive a touch of Dream Theater.
A baby voice introduces a track with a typical Yes sound,
bass parts and vocal harmonics included. ‘Alex in Paradise’ (after
Jonas’ son) sounds very cheerful and contains a very light, jazzy
guitar solo.
On ‘At The Speed Of Light’, you get to hear, for the first time, the
characteristic bass sound of Jonas and as on the debute album, I
once again get that ‘Gino Vannelli’ feeling, I wonder if Goran Edman
realizes it. The new guitar player Krister Jonsson certainly is an
asset, altough he has a less proggy style than Roine Stolt, but his
solos à la Holdsworth are awesome. This track again exhales TFK, not
in the least due to the contributions of Tomas Bodin.
After the question ‘Excuse me. Do U Tango?’ asked by a female
computer voice, follows the most bizar and at the same time the most
original track, that I heard during the last years. After this you
get a bright piece of fusion, followed by swelling bass parts in a
tango rhythm, accompanied by a counting dance teacher. The rhythm
speeds up in a compelling latino american atmosphere with a
compulsory acoustic guitar solo. The changes in tempo are really
innumerable during this track and Jonas gets the chance to enjoy
himself completely. And let’s not forget the whirling and technical
refined drums by virtuoso Zoltan!
’Where Earth Meets The Sky’ follows the trend of
‘Masterplan’, the better neoprog with again some enormous examples
of musical talent, even alternated with romantic sounding passages
in the style of classic rock ballads. Karmakanic knows how to get
such a track to a higher level, especially with the help of a few
‘jazzy’ solos on the keyboards.
The shortest track (still 5 minutes) ‘Hindby’ reveals a fantastic
bluesy guitar solo full of emotion from Jonsson, with a reference to
the early (and also the best) Satriani period.
The title track ‘Wheel of Life’ opens very cheerful with a
flute, so it’s no coincidence it reminds a bit of Jethro Tull,
covered in a Karmakanic dress. The striking difference with the
previous album is the frequent use of polyphonic voice parts. In the
middle part you get a very pleasing, even psychedelic passage (Pink
Floyd), carried by a compelling guitar by Roine Stolt. It’s amazing
how the compositions are strongly put together, the complete musical
and vocal spectrum passes the review.
Masterplan Part 2 isn’t really the sequel of the first track,
although there are some subtle simularities. Once again, the vocals
of Goran Edman are great and full of emotion and with a brilliant
guitar solo from friend Roine this track puts a pedal point to an
album which I, for the time being, declare as the best of 2004. As
always, there are a lot of references to the past and present, but
Karmakanic, and especially Jonas Reingold, combines all these
influences to a highly original collection of pure epics. I don’t
mind waiting another two year for the next album, if it means the
quality remains the same. Do I need to mention it... every prog fan
must have this album in his collection! |
