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.
Still, “The Story Of Mr. Bogd: Part 1” which will be out on August 16th is but a half of what the band came up with to detail the titular gentleman’s adventures – and there’s a lot of literary influences in there, including those by Nikolai Gogol’s “Dead Souls” novel. Quite a way to celebrate, if a bit belatedly, the group’s 30th anniversary.
1. A Hasty Departure
2. The Inn Of The Haunted Owl
3. Dreams In A Brougham
4. Chichikov Bogd
5. Mr. Tilly And His Gang
6. Through A Rural Landscape
7. The Feline Companion
8. Read All About It!
9. Forgotten Qualities
10. The Three Heads Of The Well