Swedish prog rockers Ritual ink deal with Karisma Records.

Norway’s Karisma Records have welcomed fellow Scandinavian Prog Rockers RITUAL to its Roster, and will be releasing the band’s sixth full-length album in 2024.

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 1995: 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 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.

The band is currently putting the finishing touches to the upcoming epic “The Story of Mr. Bogd, Part I” and RITUAL’s lineup 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, percussion and vocals, had this to say about teaming up with Karisma Records:

We are very excited to enter the warm cabin of Karisma Records and I think we will feel right at home there. As a band from Sweden, the Scandinavian connection feels reassuring, and Karisma’s line-up of good bands and artists feels absolutely right.

We want to collaborate with people who are dedicated music fans and who believe in what we do in RITUAL, and we feel that Karisma lives up to this and has the right focus. We look forward to releasing our sixth full-length album under the Karisma Records label!

More information about RITUAL can be found on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ritual.se or on the band’s website at https://ritual.se