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Tomas Bodin, known as the keyboard player of The Flower Kings, also
known as Bo Dean from The Swedish Family, releases his fourth solo
album. He has always been the funny guy of The Flower Kings, always
in for a joke and even his solo works often contain some funny
stuff. Remember the whole concept of
Swedish Family, a fake pre-Flower Kings band with all fake names
for the band members or for example the song “The Happy Frog” on
Sonic Boulevard. But this time, Tomas releases a completely serious
progressive rock opera. And for the first time he has even written
lyrics, because all his previous solo albums were instrumental.
“I Am” has become a real concept with only three epic tracks. It’s
the story of a man’s life, from birth till death and even the
possible reincarnation.
Tomas: “I have been influenced this time by Pink Floyd's "The Wall",
David Bowie (Ziggy period), Deep Purple and of course prog in
general. So what we have is music that goes from very heavy riff
into the most fragile close up singing.” And that’s the perfect
description of this solo album. A lot of classic rock influences,
especially the guitar, mixed with the progressive keyboards of Tomas
and sung by a splendid Anders Jansson, who already did the very few
vocals on “Sonic
Boulevard”. Especially these vocals give the Pink Floyd “The
Wall” feeling. The voice of Anders doesn’t really sound like Roger
Waters but his technique is about the same. And the sound of David
Bowie also appears from time to time in the tracks. Also the
complexity of King Crimson is lurking around.
The drums are very skilfully played by Marcus Liliequist, the new
drummer of The Flower Kings, who was already discovered by Tomas
before he joined TFK. And Jock JJ Marsh (Glenn Hughes), who was also
playing on “Sonic
Boulevard” plays the ‘classic rock’ guitar solos with an
incredible ease.
It’s very difficult to describe the whole album because there’s so
much variation in the music and atmospheres during the tracks. The
first track “I” already contains some emotional vocals accompanied
by the piano, brilliant classic guitar solos, theatrical church
organ pieces, quiet emotional vocal parts by Anders and the female
vocalists Pernilla (the wife of Tomas) and Helene.
The second part “A” sounds brighter but jazzier, especially because
of the drums of Marcus. It starts with a heavy riff during “Take me
Home”, an awesome piece of music with a great sweeping synth solo
sound which changes into a beautiful piano/vocal part layered on the
jazzy drums. The vocal harmonies are brilliantly put together. The
keyboard sounds are all very genuine without any complexity. It’s
all about piano, Mellotron, Hammond,… all sounds that come close to
the real thing. The emotional quiet sung middle piece that grows
into a vocal climax especially reminds me of “The Wall”. It changes
into a superb clean guitar solo with the incredible Jonas on bass
and filled in with a Hammond organ, while the vocals change into a
“Great Gig in the Sky” sound.
“M” starts off as a piece of “The Wall”, followed by some musical
surprises which again take too much time and words to describe, and
you also need to discover some goodies yourself, isn’t it?
A
great CD, one of the best of this year, so far. Finally a CD out of
TFK world, with some TFK members, which is something completely
different from TFK. A great progressive rock opera which takes some
time to get into, but the reward for the effort is great!! |
