Bass player Jonas Reingold is of course a well-known musician in the prog world, think Steve Hackett Band and The Flower Kings; and now after a nine-year hiatus Reingold returns with a new album called Transmutation with his solo project Karmakanic. Transmutation is Karmakanic's sixth album and Reingold is assisted by a couple of world-class musicians on this beautiful new album. The amazing line up consists amongst others of: Steve Hackett (guitar), Randy McStine (lead guitar), singer John Mitchell (whose beautiful voice can be heard on albums of It Bites, Lonely Robot, Frost* and Legacy Pilots) and drummers Nick D'Virgillio, Simon Phillips and Craig Blundel. This amazing album kicks off with Brace For Impact, being a wonderful, rocking, up tempo instrumental prog fusion song filled with raw energy and soaring guitar solos from Krister Jonsson so in other words, a great start and lots to look forward to for the rest of the album indeed! End Of The Road, an epic song, clocking in over ten minutes, features the "new" Karmakanic vocalist John Mitchell and actually he is one of my favourite prog/pop vocalists, so that makes this album even more interesting and nicer to listen to for sure! End Of The Road opens with an atmospheric, intimate piano melody, evolving into a laidback tempo semi-epic with up tempo changes later on in the track. The guitar solo of Luke Machin is nice and this song really sounds like something the notorious Flower Kings might have recorded, in other words fan-bloody-tastic indeed! Cosmic Love, We Got The World In Our Hands, All That Glitters Is Gold and Lose This Ball And Chain are all typical Karmakanic pop/rock songs with pleasing melodies and sometimes even an earworm chorus (We Got The World In Our Hands). But Reingold saves the best for last as the title track is the album's absolute epic showstopper. Transmutation (The Constant Change Of Everything) clocks in at nearly twenty-three minutes and it is indeed a marvellous prog rock "monster", featuring Nick D'Virgillio on drums and again the long instrumental passages truly remind me of The Flower Kings, while the whole track is a 100% prog rock rollercoaster with plenty of twists and turns, excellent hooks and truly ear-catching superb melodies; featuring Hackett on acoustic guitar, Andy Tillison on Hammond organ and wonderful vocals by Mitchell, assisted by Dina Hóblinger and Amanda Lehman; so all's well that ends well. Right? Conclusion: Karmakanic's sixth album is a must for fans of The Flower Kings, Karmakanic and for lovers of straightforward rock/prog rock and fusion, as there is a lot to enjoy here. For me, this is Karmakanic's best album and that is mainly due to the great vocal performance of John Mitchell. So, another excellent prog rock album for my top ten list of 2025 and it is only March, so that promises a lot, I hope... ****+ Martien Koolen (edited by Dave Smith) Where to buy? |
