I've never listened to the Anderson/Stolt album. Need to, soon, just to know why it's not so good myself.
Gave the 2nd Karmakanic album, Wheel of Life, a listen. Been a while. I forgot how much good stuff there is on there, and Roine Stolt pops up for solos on the last 2 tracks. The keyboardist is quite technically proficient, not unlike Jordan Rudess. Really, everyone in the band are very excellent players. The Jonas and Zoltan rhythm section is possibly my favorite prog rhythm section of the last 25 years. It's too bad they don't play anything together since the late 2000s.
This is the first album that we truly see full band with it's own sound, though still with guests. I think they solidified their sound on the next album. But here we have Masterplan which is a great classic prog sounding piece, but mixed with nice prog-metal touches. Do U Tango is instrumental prog fusion insanity, and it's nice to hear Roine play on the title track and Masterplan Pt 2. I used to dislike parts of this album, mostly the vocals, some weird choices made here at times, but other times really great singing. Kinda odd. When he's good, he's good.