ENTERING THE SPECTRA

All I can say is.."Man, Jonas Reingold can play/write in so many styles of music. A bass chameleon of sorts. He is equally skilled at playing heavy metal ,(his band Midnight Sun) progressive rock ,(the Flower King's) Jazz rock, (the Flower Kings also) Pop rock, ( the song "Welcome To Paradise" and "The Spirit Remains the Same" off of this CD) and of coarse his there's his love of fusion. Jonas once said "The spirit of Jaco Pastorious moves through me". I know Jonas Reingold through his Cds with the Flower King's. Unlike that band where he writes nada. On this CD he writes all the Music and lyrics and he is a very good composer. There is a lot of styles of music on this CD and all are crafted well. All the Flower King's are presented here on this CD as well as former Y. Malmstien vocalist Goran Edman. Goran sings the song "The Spirit Remains the Same" Which is vocally, an emotion filled tour de force. There is a ripping instrumental (One Whole Half) where everyone gets to show their stuff. The song "Entering the Spectra" starts off with an intro Jonas plagiarized from himself. It's the intro of the song "Dungeons of Steel from the album Metal Machine (Midnight Sun) only it's jazzed up a bit. But that's where the similarities end. The song is sung by Roine Stolt. It's 12:00 min. plus and it's the most progressive song on this CD. There is a simple but unusual song called "Cyberdust From Mars". (again sung by Roine) that I really love and I also like the 3 part "Is This the End". You would think by seeing the musicians on this CD that it would sound like another Flower King's CD (Kinda like the way the 2 Kaipa Cds sound eh?) but it doesn't at all really. I like it a lot, even if it does get a little poppy at times. 4 stars.