Rite Here, Rite Now
After a 17-year break, Swedish four-piece Ritual have made a very welcome return with the first part of The Story Of Mr. Bogd. Guitarist/vocalist Patrik Lundström discusses embracing their inner child, the magic of Moomins and the musical journey that led to the creation of the two-part concept album.
Words: Dom Lawson
Ritual: big kids at heart.
Portrait: Nikola Stankovic
“We’ve stuck together for a long time, and people often comment that we still have the same line-up, and that it’s crazy. Maybe it is, but we will always be the same line-up. It’s a guarantee that the band’s personality will stay intact.”
O
ne of Sweden’s most distinctive modern prog bands, Ritual formed in 1992 and were firmly ahead of the game from the start. Inspired by the prog legends of the 60s and 70s and more modern exponents of the art, such as It Bites and XTC, they steadily evolved into a melodic and endlessly inventive powerhouse, with a curious obsession with Finnish legend Tove Jansson’s Moomin stories and a fervently diverse musical palette. Their first four albums are all magnificent, and the last of them –2007’s
The Hemulic Voluntary Band
–was widely hailed as a triumph, at least in prog circles. But since then, Ritual have been conspicuous by their absence. They never stopped making music, but hadn’t released a new album in 17 years, despite continual rumours that fresh music was on the way. They finally completed work on the first part of a planned double concept album,
The Story Of Mr. Bogd
, and relaunched themselves, albeit several years later than planned, last August.