THE RAINMAKER

This is a band that have managed to move on yet not change their sound very much since their inception in 1993. I still regularly play Roine Stolt's solo album 'The Flower King', and the sound of the band that he put together around that still keep that vision shining through. There are not many bands that are immediately recognisable, and Roine manages to keep his work in this band fairly distant from his work in the prog supergroup Transatlantic.

Well what can you expect from the new album? Great musicianship, of course, songs that are as short as 70 seconds ("Red Alert") or as long as fourteen minutes ("Road To Sanctuary"). There are some that are slow and some that are quick, but for the most part they all contain those elements and many more. Their use of layered vocals almost comes across as The Moody Blues at times, and the whole result is a prog album that is a joy to listen to that doesn't take too much concentration. Call it prog, call it melodic rock, call it good.

Originally appeared in Feedback #64, Oct 01