ENTERING THE SPECTRA

If you see the KARMAKANIC line-up, you'll know that musicians are very fine. This FLOWER KINGS parallel project, however, uses musical skills to sail among jazz, hard rock and even metal waters, forgetting the melodic line and the essential progressive rock component: beauty. Of course, if you are looking for an energetic and very well played heavy rock with progressive touches, you'll like this album.

The KARMAKANIC cd was a gift to me, and I heard it trying to find some elements to enjoy, but it wasn't possible. Maybe I'm not really fair, because -IMHO- "Entering the Spectra" seems a mixture between THE FLOWER KINGS and DREAM THEATER, and both bands aren't my cup of tea. I can't recommend it.

Edited 09/27/05!

KARMAKANIC is a side project of THE FLOWER KINGS with the involvement of the complete TFK line-up as already explained well in the biography. However although they are the same musicians I would disagree to the quite common opinion that their music sound almost the same like FK's. At least if one substracts 2 tracks on this albums, one of them being a TFK composition anyway (#7), the other is the very long epic title song, which is in fact the hightlight of the album. Of course Roine's voice sounds like Roine, whether he sings in TFK, KARMAKANIC or THE TANGENT. One main difference compared to TFK is that Karmakanic's music is less intricate (at least compared to Unfold The Future having fewer symphonic elements in general and is heavier, sometimes tending even towards Hardrock/Metal.

Okay let's try a track by track review: The Little Man represents the introduction of the album's theme which is the story of "the tiny little man with an ordinary life", who would like to be something special and is escaping for this reason into internet cyberspace. No.2, the title song is like mentioned above very much TFK-alike and consists in the typical TFK manner of several parts in quite different styles like heavy rock, more mellow music and jazz-rock fusion. Very diverse and definitely the best one. The Spirit Remains the Same is quite reminiscent of POS, although Daniel Gildenlöw is not involved here. The whole song sounds very dark with vocals of ex-RISING FORCEsinger Göran Edman and inclusion of an aboriginal vocal sample. For sure not very much TFK-typical. No. 4's title Cyberdust From Mars fits perfectly to the music, starting with a deep breathing and being a very spacy, a bit weird and quite heavy song with vocals performed by Roine that sound here differently than usually. Apart of his voice this song has as well little resemblance with TFK. Space Race No.3 is a very Metal-alike one with Göran Edman singing. In fact this music style should not be that surprising for a band led by Jonas Reingold, knowing something about his (and Zoltan Csörsz') numerous appearances in Melodic/Neoclassical bands like TIME REQUIEM, SPACE ODYSSEY or OPUS ATLANTICA, mainly together with MAJESTIC-keyboarder Richard Andersson. Although this kind of music is quite nice to listen IMO, it's probably not regarded as essential and interesting by Progheads. Next track The Man In The Moon is the weakest one of the album I would say, although being not really bad. Actually a quite common AOR rock song with Edman singing once again. It's leading without any break over to No. 7 One whole half, which was already relased on the Rainmaker album bonus disc. This version sounds a bit different and quite interesting containing an brilliant solo by Jonas. A rather hectic, fast and heavy song. EXCELLENT! No. 8 Is this the end? is starting very mellow in a psychedelic vein, and develops over some choral singing finally to an almost QUEEN-alike arena rock (or Power Metal) hymn. This song sounds as well not much TFK-alike, but still a very good one. Then Jonas is presenting us a short fretless version of Bach's Cello Suite No.1 played in an incredible speed and his bass play is leading over to the last track Welcome To Paradise, a quite fast and more heavy song with Jonas and Göran Edman singing together. The lyrics are very ironic and despite of the title it sounds sometimes more like an invitation to hell. In some parts this song could also be a TFK one, but with its heavy rock impact it still sounds differently. A very good one again.

Conclusion:

Entering The Spectra fully keeps what its title is promising. It's very colourful having in fact almost any weak moments (apart of "Man In The Moon") and indeed is a very remarkable debut, at least one of the better ones in the last few years. Although it does not have quite the very high level as TFK's releases, it still offers a nice combination of TFK-style of music and some kind of melodic hardrock/metal in the vein of above mentioned bands in which Jonas Reingold, Zoltan Csörsz as well as former TFK-drummer Jaime Salazar have been involved. Not only recommended for TFK-fans I would say but to fully appreciate it maybe one should like melodic Power Metal. Although not necessarily an essential one in Prog this album is still worth 3,5 stars!

It was not so long that I heard about this "sideproject" of TFK, Karmakanic. I admire The Flower Kings a lot, have all their albums so then it's time for the related ones. I was by no means disappointed by this new band. It has at least a slight edge comparing to TFK and that's because of Goran Edman who is in my opinion a better singer than both Hasse Froberg and Roine Stolt. The music (compositions) can't really cope with the leavel of TFK but that's not a shame because hardly anything does ! And yet, also here Karmakanic doesn't do a bad job. The title track is by far the best song on the album and it's a real classic. A terrific composition with lots of variety and instrumental passages. Other great songs are Is this the end ? and Welcome to Paradise which are highly original songs; the first very emotional and the second handling about some cyberclash, quite funny actually. The other songs are nice too though not as impressive.

A very nice debut by Karmakanic deservedly rewarded with 4 stars (act. 3,5).

This is a side project of Jonas Reigold the bass player for THE FLOWER KINGS. He wrote the songs and has help on this album from the whole THE FLOWER KINGS band including both drummers Salazar and Czorz. He also enlists the help of a second keyboard player and lead guitarist, as well as the former vocalist for Yngvie Malmsteen Goran Edman. The name KARMAKANIC apparently was taken from the name Karma Mechanic from the song "The Battle Of Epping Forest" by GENESIS. I found this recording a little frustrating mainly because there are three songs I like very much, but the rest really don't do much for me. My tastes I know, but this could easily have been a 4 star record if not higher for me.There is a bonus track "Losers Game" that was apparently only on the American released cds. I'm sure it was supposed to be a joke, I mean I was embarassed the first time I heard it because it sounds like one of those boy bands from the nineties, or whenever.

The first song "The Little Man" is really a spoken word intro explaining the concept of this album. "Entering The Spectra" is one of the best songs on here. A 12 minute ride that has FLOWER KINGS moments as well as a Prog-Metal intro. Nice. It does sound so amazing. It then gets psychedelic with processed vocals and birds singing. It gets jazzy 6 1/2 minutes in followed by some tasteful guitar then xylophone. So yeah, a mixed bag but it works so well. The drumming and bass playing really are outstanding on it. "The Spirit Remains The Same" like the previous track opens heavily then we get the contrast of vocals and a lighter sound. There is so much bottom end on this one with angular guitar 4 1/2 minutes in. Great track and a top 3. "Cyberdust From Mars" doesn't do a lot for me with the sampling in the intro and overall sound that follows.

"Space Race No.3" is better, I especially like the darker sections. "The Man In The Moon" misses the mark completely in my opinion. Very poppy and smooth. "One Whole Half" is the other top 3 song for me.This is an instrumental. Check out the guitar, bass and drums ! Bass solo before 2 minutes and background synths later are a nice touch. "Is This The End ?" opens very ballad-like with reserved vocals and piano. Not a fan. It does change 2 minutes in with lots of synths before a full sound 3 1/2 minutes in. "Cello Suite No.1 In G" is a short fretted bass solo by Jonas. "Welcome To Paradise" opens with spacey sounds before a bass solo. It turns into an uptempo tune with vocals. I like the dark section after 5 minutes with theatrical vocals. It becomes catchy and fun 8 minutes in to the end.

So yes this is a good record that at times is brilliant. Unfortunately there are way too many average moments.

Entering the Spectra is the debut solo album from The Flower Kings bassist Jonas Reingold. It´s almost wrong to call Entering the Spectra a solo album as both Roine Stolt, Jaime Salazar, Tomas Bodin and Zoltan Czörz from The Flower Kings contribute heavily on the album. This is not a Flower Kings album but sometimes it´s close to being one. There are also a couple of musicians contributing who is and has not been a part of The Flower Kings and it´s mostly from those musicians we hear the surprises. Robert Engstrand ( Dingo) delivers some nice piano work, Johan Glössner delivers some pretty heavy guitars and Göran Edman ( Ex- Yngwie Malmsteen) sings on many of the songs. Roine Stolt also sings on a couple of songs but it is Göran Edman´s hard rock vocals which are dominant on the album. When Göran Edman sings Karmakanic sounds significantly different from The Flower Kings.

Jonas Reingold has composed some really good songs on Entering the Spectra. The style ranges from symphonic prog rock to hard rock to jazz/ Fusion which I know sounds much like the style The Flower Kings play, but Karmakanic really doesn´t sound like them. It´s probably the fans of The Flower Kings that will get most out of Entering the Spectra even though people unfamiliar with said band should be able to enjoy the music as well.

The musicianship is outstanding. Anyone familiar with The Flower Kings knows that this band consist solely of astonishing musicians. Jonas Reingold obviously gets to play a few beautiful and challenging bassparts here and there but the music is mainly band oriented and not a showcase for Jonas Reingold´s bass skills.

The production is a high quality product which has many of the unmistakebly swedish characteristica.

As a fan of The Flower Kings I bought this album and expected to hear some great music and I must say that some of my expectations were met. This is good music but I can´t say that I enjoy it as much as the music from The Flower Kings. One of the good things about Entering The Spectra is that it sounds like a band effort most of the time and that´s always a good thing in my book when solo artists release albums. Too much bass noodling would have been a bit too trivial IMO. I´ll give Entering the Spectra 3 stars.

Karmakanic´s first release is very interesting. The group not really a group yet, but a side project of The Flower Kings bassist Jonas Reingold, with several musicians helping out, most of them from TFK itself. I bought it as soon as it was out since I was in my deep Flower Kings phase at the time. I remember not liking it much. In fact I gave this CD to a friend not too long after that and just forgot about it. Now I see I was a little too hard on it. And after hearing their excellent third album, the magnificent Who´s The Boss In The Factory?, I decided to give another try.

Well, after repeated hearings I still think it does sound too much like something out of TFK: after all, five out of the eight official members are from TFK, including leader Roine Stolt (although he does sing two leads he does not appear on all tunes). The title track is a good exemple of one of those epic songs that made the swedish band so famous. It is by far the best song of the entire album and one hell of a great prog tune. the remaining material is not that fantastic, but it is very good anyway. Of course you´ll have the inevitable bass solo and some self indulgent sutff here and there, but I found them to be rather limited, so I guess I regret giving my CD away. And I have to admit Reingold did a fine job as a songwriter in this style. Some of his past hard rock roots also shows in some spots giving this work the necessary different element that set them away from being just another TFK copycats.

Conclusion: if you like the TFK, chances are you´re gonna love this CD. The fact that Karmakanic dind´t have a individual personality yet does not mean its music is not powerful and devoided of many qualities. In fact it has enough strong tunes to even compete with some of the CDs TFK were releasing around that time (like Rain Man and Adam & Eve, for exemple). My rating: very hard to decide! Something between 3,5 and 4 stars.

If you are willing to listen to a "Flower Kings" song without listening to "The Flower Kings", you'll just need to grab this album and enjoy "Entering The Spectra". No wonder though since this Tomas Bodin work regroups the line-up of this good Swedish band.

You got it all here: jazzy parts, symphonic architecture, fine Roine vocals (but not exclusively him), splendid guitar and so on. I told you?The highlight of this album. Environment changes with the heavy "Spirit Remains The Same" which is quite unexpected (I mean the heavy side). But, this album do sound more metal oriented than a traditional TFK effort (which doesn't hurt since this is not a TFK album?).

Another heavier example is the dynamic "Cyberdust From Mars". A bit too noisy to my taste even if Roine's vocals are quite effective. Some metal oriented and bombastic "Space Race" is more of my likings?even if the backing vocals and the overall sound reminds me very much of an Ayreon type of song.

IMO, this album is rather (prog) metal oriented. Most songs are leaning towards this genre: "One Whole Half" is another one. Still, it is combined with a solid jazz feel as well. Maybe too much jam-oriented and loose. The weakest part of this offering as far as I'm concerned.

Another fave is splendidly melodic "Is This The End". Fortunately not! It is a true gem, fully in line with the most beautiful TFK partitions. Emotional vocals, superb guitar bombastic feel etc. Another highlight.

This album seriously head in the prog metal direction (except for twenty minutes ? two songs). But after all, it is not a bad idea to explore new territories since this is a side project. Three stars.