The opening track to ‘A Hasty Departure’ speaks volume with an intense string section. When I heard that section Ritual does, they pay tribute to Ron Geesin’s arrangements, known for his collaboration with the Floyd on their unsung masterpiece Atom Heart Mother and with Roger Waters during the making of The Body in 1970. This is the band’s fifth studio album and it had been 17 years since they’ve unleashed their previous album, The Hemulic Voluntary Band in 2007.
Formed in 1993 in their hometown in Stockholm, Sweden, the quartet has this folk-proggy like complex with its melodic arrangement. They are a band that have their own influences between not just the prog-rock genre in which they pay nod to, but elements of the hard rock category which comes in handy. With their latest album, The Story of Mr. Bogd, Part 1, we are invited into this strange, bizarre story on this mysterious character they’ve created. Released on the Karisma label, Ritual pull all of the stop signs out to create this mind-blowing story they’ve unleashed to the prog community.
There’s the Celtic momentum for ‘Mr. Tilly and his Gang’ at first, but then it starts to get more tense where all of the marvellous waltz-like scenario for his fellow comrades to dance up and down the balcony where Mr. Bogd is mesmerised to see what amazing musicians will come up with next. Nods to Gentle Giant’s medieval folky textures come in very handy before the change starts to rev up for some thumped-up arrangements between bass, drums, ascending vocals, and AOR orientations with ‘Chichikov Bogd’.
The romantic, turned Danny Elfman-sque landscape details an older ragged woman who has ‘The Feline Companion’ with her, describes the intensive scenario with pumping bass and mellotron strings sets up on how she ended up on the streets.
You feel her sadness, you feel her pain, and you want her to come along with Bogd’s journey to see where they’ll go next while returning to this wacky, yet chaotic turned operatic midsection with some Zappa nods, followed by the Cardiacs rolled into one of the most hay-wiring effects that is evidential on the climax of ‘Read All About It!’
‘Through a Rural Landscape’ features this jazzy piano orientation, done in the style of Wynton Kelly, who was a pianist on Miles Davis’ classic Kind of Blue. There are elements of an alternative country orientation, looking through the world Bogd sees when riding on his horse-drawn wagon to the next town, giving him a chance of reflexing on what he’s occurred throughout the story.
Ritual has offered enough evidence to keep you guessing until they come up the second part of the story. It has nods to fellow Norwegian prog maestros Gazpacho that comes to mind, but it is a bizarre story that has a lot of guesses and repeatable listens to make you understand what will happen next.
