From Bo Hansson’s oeuvre onwards, Swedish prog domain has long been inhabited by books characters, and RITUAL added quite a few chapters to this musical library by making forays into the world of Tove Jansson’s Moomins. The band may have gone on hiatus after 2007’s “The Hemulic Voluntary Band” – or so it seemed, since fans didn’t hear anything new from them until 2020 when the “Glimpses From the Story of Mr. Bogd” EP suggested another epic was in the works. Indeed, the collective set to flesh out a tale written by the ensemble’s bassist Fredrik Lindqvist with arresting melodies and riveting arrangements. Only their followers were to wait four more years for a full-length album, previewed earlier, to see the light of day.
