“I’m as leery of self-proclaimed supergroups as the next guy. They almost never work out. Usually, though, they at least have some humility about themselves, and claim they are not in fact a supergroup, but rather just a bunch of chaps who happen to want to make music together. Not so with The Sea Within. In fact, guitarist Roine Stolt (Transatlantic, The Flower Kings) says “Call it a supergroup if you want – I think we can handle that.” Big words!” Super group, super attitude.
“The country of Sweden is home to 9.9 million people. Judging from the number of bands that come out of that land, 10 million of those individuals are musicians. And good ones, too. In this latest version of his band, Karmakanic founder and bassist Jonas Reingold (also of The Flower Kings) attempts to use as many of them as possible. No less than twelve artists get credited on Karmakanic’s fifth full-length release, DOT.” I once knew a Swede that wasn’t in a band. He was actually in 5 bands.
“For some fickle mechanisms of the human mind and various other lunacies, first wave progressive rock acts as my personal, pesky Madeleine; a trigger of sickly sweet involuntary memories. Because of that I’m cursed: each riff by Gentle Giant, Camel or other bands that I encountered when first discovering everything progressive, now inundates me with inescapable, banal yet pleasurable nostalgia meshed with a remembrance of ages that I could have never lived through.” Welcome back to the Age of the Noodle.
