PINUP GURU

Tomas is of course keyboard player with The Flower Kings and this is his debut solo album. His aim was to produce an album that was similar in fashion to The Nice or ELP so he brought in band mates Jonas Reingold (bass) and Zoltan Csörsz (drums) to assist him in achieving this. While I agree he has gone some way to being able to do that, the album is still lacking in many respects. There are times when he has got it very right indeed, such as on "Harlem Heat" where he recreates the gospel atmosphere and vibrancy, but there are times when I was just wondering what was going on.

There just aren't enough melodies on the album to maintain interest throughout. There is no doubting that all of these guys are very fine musicians indeed but it takes more than skill to be able to produce a killer album and when it is an instrumental work it is even more difficult. Some of the Floydian touches are quite good and as a background album it is quite pleasant but certainly for me it could never be anything more than that.

Originally appeared in Feedback #70, Oct 02