Keyholder

Give Kaipa credit for righting the wrongs of its comeback album Notes From the Past. Keyholder is a far superior offering in every aspect. First of all, instead of sounding like former bandmates Hans Lundin (keys) and Roine Stolt (guitars) getting together with some friends, you get the feeling of a real band working out — the lineup remains the same but Morgan Ågren (drums), Jonas Reingold (bass), and singer Patrik Lundström all seem to had a bigger saying in how the songs turned out. The music is livelier and less turned toward the past. It remains "classic" symphonic progressive rock but has that modern (or should it be "timeless") element that gives the Flower Kings' music its spark. In fact, with Stolt taking care of most of the lyrics and putting his highly recognizable guitar touch to every twist and turn of the music, one could be mistaken for believing that Keyholder is another Flower Kings album with Lundström as guest vocalist. Highlights include the opening "Lifetime of a Journey," "The Weed of All Mankind," and "Otherworldly Brights," all finely crafted songs where Lundström shows how warm his voice can be when he leaves prog metal clichés behind (he did the same on his regular group Ritual's Think Like a Mountain, released simultaneously). In "Distant Voices," Lundin rolls out a quasi-jazz (yet not really fusion) thread across the 13 minutes of the tune. Something still doesn't fit when Aleena sings lead (in "A Complex Work of Art," in particular), but the two singers do an excellent job trading lines in "Distant Voices." There is not a single weak song on this generous CD (over 78 minutes long). Fans of the Flower Kings will love it. And those annoyed by the excesses of Stolt's group will find slightly different kinds of excesses in Kaipa. ~ François Couture, Rovi