RITUAL

track-list:
A Hasty Departure
The Inn of the Haunted Owl
Dreams in a Brougham
Chichikov Bogd
Mr. Tilly and his Gang
Through a Rural Landscape
The Feline Companion
Read all about it!
Forgotten Qualities
The Three Heads of the Well

Ritual is a progressive rock band from Stockholm, formed in 1993.
Influenced equally by progressive rock and hardrock of the 70s and contermporary bands like The Police, XTC and It Bites, Ritual forged their own distinctive brand of progressive music.
The characteristics of the band’s sound were already prominent on their eponymous debut album, released in 1996:
song based, melodic and intense, with a great stylistic variation, and plenty of folk music influences seeping in.
The latter feature is not least due to the band’s frequent use of acoustic instruments like bouzouki, mandola, whistles and the Swedish nyckelharpa (a keyed fiddle).
Songs like ‘Seasong For The Moominpappa‘ also showed something that would become a hallmark of the band:
lyrics inspired by Tove Jansson’s novels about the Moomins.
This culminated in the album ‘The Hemulic Voluntary Band‘ from 2008, where five out of six songs drew inspiration from Tove Jansson, including the 26-minute long ‘A Dangerous Journey‘.
Over the years, Ritual has established themselves as a confident and powerful live band through numerous tours around Europe and appearances at international festivals such as Rites Of Spring Fest in the USA and Baja Prog in Mexico.
With a lineup composed of Patrik Lundström on lead vocals and guitar, Fredrik Lindqvist on bass, mandola, dulcimer, recorder and vocals, Jon Gamble on keyboards and vocals, and Johan Nordgren on drums, nyckelharpa and vocals, Ritual have established themselves as a confident and powerful live band through numerous tours around Europe and appearances at international festivals such as Rites Of Spring Fest in the USA and Baja Prog in Mexico.
It’s been 17 long years since RITUAL released their last album and in august 2024 Ritual released their long awaited sixth full-length album ‘The Story of Mr. Bogd – Part 1‘.
Ritual released also single ‘Chichikov Bogd‘.
Here is what the band had to say about it:
“What is ‘Chichikov Bogd’? Well, that’s the name of the protagonist in Ritual’s musical epic ‘The Story of Mr. Bogd – Part 1’. It is also the name of one of the songs on the album, and tells a bit about the main character’s background. The song was previously released on the 2020 EP ‘Glimpses’ but here it comes in a thunderous, remixed and remastered single version. Mr. Bogd has arrived!”
With ‘The Story of Mr. Bogd – Part 1‘, Ritual has created a blissful blend of road movie, classic fairytale, buddy movie and adventure epic, set in an imaginary land and era reminiscent of late 19th century Europe.
All delivered with music that covers a large amount of stylistic ground, ranging from intense and powerful rock, to musically elaborate and intricate tracks, along with some odd and even quirky moments, and of course some acoustic, folky songs.
‘The Story of Mr. Bogd – Part 1‘ features artwork by Javier ‘Canelita‘ Herbozo, no strangers to the art of the ‘concept’ album, indeed they have often been inspired by Tove Jansson’s novels about the Moomins, Ritual’s new album forms the first part of the story of Mr Bogd, the oddly named protagonist who, as an established member of society and an affluent individual, realises that the life he is living is deeply unsatisfactory.
“The result of this revelation is that our Mr. Bogd suffers a mid-life crisis so deep that he sees no other alternative than to leave his job and his comfortable urban lifestyle.”
It is an act of pure desperation – a decision taken without having any clear idea of what it is he is actually looking for.
He therefore frequently falls prey to moments of doubt, yet, deep inside of him, there are insistent memories and strong sensations that constantly drive him forward on a journey that, together with coachman Parkhurst, leads Mr. Bogd through an increasingly wild, imaginative and dangerous environment.
“In short, it’s a story about forsaking what we know, what is safe, and what is all mapped out, in favour of an ideal of what constitutes the natural world. That distant, unlit, unknown, destination, whilst at the same time exploring why anyone would want to do such a thing. At its heart it is a story about maintaining your innocence, and finding sanity and self- esteem, and what one is ready to give up in order to do so.”