| The Flower King (Roine Stolt) | 1994 |
| Back In The World Of Adventures | 1995 |
| Retropolis | 1996 |
| Stardust We Are | 1997 |
| Scanning The Greenhouse (compilation) | 1998 |
| Edition Limitee Quebec, 1998 | 1998 |
| Flower Power | 1999 |
| Alive On Planet Earth (live) | 2000 |
| Space Revolver | 2000 |
| The Rainmaker | 2001 |
| Unfold The Future | 2003 |
Proper intro coming eventually.
Post your comments about The Flower Kings
released by Roine Stolt
(reviewed by Nick Karn)
HIGH POINTS: The Flower King, The Magic Circus Of Zeb, Dissonata. LOW POINTS: None.
Despite the deceptive title, this is not technically the Flower Kings' debut (as you might have guessed from above - that would be Back In The World Of Adventures). Instead, it is actually the first solo effort from songwriter Roine Stolt, who had long been a veteran of the prog scene by this point (going back into the 70's with his days in the obscure Swedish group Kaipa). But this is actually the album they originated out of - the backing band Stolt used in touring behind it eventually became the lineup of the Flower Kings as a whole, plus Hasse Froberg sings lead vocals on two songs, Jaime Salazar plays drums on three more, and Ulf Wallander guests on soprano sax. Sure, Stolt does do all the songwriting and a vast majority of the playing, but he's pretty much in complete control of the band throughout their history anyway (apart from a Tomas Bodin number here and there), so it makes logical sense that the album should be placed here. Especially since it doesn't differ that much from what came later.
There is one key difference between this and later Flower Kings stuff, though - for the most part, The Flower King seems to place more of an accent on Stolt's guitar work than usual. Three of these tracks are actually purely instrumental, but even several of the vocal pieces have lengthy guitar-led jams in the middle. But this is good! I know some might argue with me, but I really believe this guy to be more talented at guitar than songwriting in general - he's often a substandard arranger, and several of his vocal melodies are not that captivating, but listening to his guitar work, well... I can easily say a lot of this soloing is among the most powerful and emotional to come out of neo-prog. Especially on the entertaining little groove (well, not so little, maybe - it is 7 minutes long) of "The Magic Circus Of Zeb". You'd think for such a stupid pretentious title it would be dumb, but the way it breaks into gorgeous Steve Hackett influenced bits is absolutely teriffic and flowing, and never gets boring for a second.
Regardless of what complaints I have about Stolt's songwriting and arranging, though, the first three songs on here (including "The Magic Circus Of Zeb") are fantastic. In fact, the 10 minute opening title track might be the best song he's ever written, or at least one of the catchiest ones. The way the soulful introductory guitar leads us into an incredibly uplifting Eastern influenced pop tune is stunning enough, but the quality of both the verse and choruses melodies are simply awesome, especially the soul-lifting 'we believe in the light...' refrain sung by Froberg. And the lengthy Yes-ish sort of guitar-led jam bit in between... damn, this one does a great job of taking the listener through all different moods and displaying an understanding of minimalistic genius. But don't overlook "Dissonata" either, a really, really interesting piece whose vocal melody keeps shifting in a somewhat weird, you guessed it, dissonant fashion that makes it highly memorable. It's also got another very effective long jam with a fabulous guitar line (over a drum machine type rhythm appearing throughout), and a great 'evil' variation of the melody 7 minutes in. It pretty much kicks ass the whole way through - enough said.
Unfortunately, Stolt's bothersome obsession with his method of filling nearly an entire CD with every song he's written becomes apparent even here, as the album is 70 minutes long. Luckily, none of the remainder of the songs exactly suck, but none are on the same level as the opening three either. Nevertheless, "Close Your Eyes" is a very pretty pop ballad with a somewhat haunting atmosphere (though it can feel a little insubstantial), and "The Pilgrim's Inn", while overlong (it does start to drag a bit halfway through) does a really nice job of combining a pastoral acoustic atmosphere (flute lines added in here as well) with very jazz-influenced guitar and sax interplay, and the very stripped down acoustic final two minute portion is nice. The final instrumental "The Sounds Of Violence" is also a solid entry, as that ethereal introductory bit it has quickly morphs into an exciting organ/guitar duel throughout its' 5-1/2 minutes.
The next song, though, is probably the most flawed of the lot. Not that it's bad, but the 20:53 "Humanizzimo", largely an attempt at a lengthy prog pop suite, would probably be a lot better cut down in half, at least. It does have really cool points, like the almost completely laid back 'Twilight Flower' (where the jazzy saxes merging with the keys and guitar almost make it sound dangerously close to elevator music, but it's nice anyway), the really playful and bouncy 'The Messenger' is entertaining (dig the 'it's in the human nature of things... you'd better look out... for the flower king!' melody), and the mellow 'we go down to the river of love...' chant is atmospheric, but 'The Nail' is pretty much generic balladry not unlike the Flower Kings' lesser attempts in this vein, and the others are only decent pop bits I could take or leave. But as if the whole thing were a concept or something, the closing track "Scanning The Greenhouse" ends the album on a good note in functioning as a reprise of the best melodies here (including the fantastic chorus to the title track!). Excellent stuff on the whole - not a bad track here, and this is probably just as recommendable as anything from the later output.
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COMMENTS
Neo-prog classic. Nothing else to say. Buy this one now. "The Flower King" is amazing and gorgeous.
(reviewed by Nick Karn)
HIGH POINTS: There Is More To This World. LOW POINTS: None.
What an appropriate album title for a neo-prog band. Indeed, Retropolis might be the album where Roine Stolt most gives in to incorporating heavy influences of older prog into the music, most notably Genesis and Yes. Not that a good amount of the Flower Kings' catalog isn't derivative by itself, but here it probably most comes out. But even despite the regressive title, that still doesn't mean the music is bad at all - in fact, this is probably one of their most consistent albums that Roine and the band ever did. Of of the 68 minutes here, I can't think of one song that I would obviously cut out (though I would trim some of this stuff). Even the pieces from Tomas "My Entire Songwriting Career Consists Of Having To Think Of 50 Second Interludes In Between The Epics" Bodin work well in this case. Of course, with maybe one exception, there aren't any songs here that really jump out in convincing me that this is a great band or anything, but it's still a nice listening experience.
It's also certainly a brave move to start off an album with an 11 minute instrumental piece (no, the 'clicking noise' 28 second experiment "Rhythm Of Life" counts not as a song), as they did here with the title track. While it is overlong by a bit, I'm surprised at how much dynamic power it has in spite of sounding almost like a collage of ideas, shifting from mellotron soundscapes to stuff very reminiscent of movie scores to meditative atmospheres and back to typical Flower Kings jam mode, all ending with a very nice minute long segment of acoustic guitar work. On first listen it sounds entirely pointless, rambling and disorganized, but it turns out to be enjoyable. As does the at first boring mellow ballad "Rhythm Of The Sea", but on closer listen even this one has a pretty haunting melody to go along with its' quiet acoustic and piano backing, and I like how it briefly turns ambient in the beginning and funky in the middle.
Like the title track demonstrates, there's a healthy dose of typical jamming power on the album elsewhere. "The Melting Pot" might not totally live up to its' title, as it doesn't veer from that many different influences, but it's good at what it does have, going from chillingly beautiful piano ballad to laid-back and peaceful jazzy sax led atmosphere and even occasional hard rock soloing. Interestingly enough, there's also futuristic textures in a couple other pieces - on "Flora Majora" the band jams for almost 7 minutes on some very spacey, oddly uplifting synth tones to good effect, and the weird electronic soundscape of "Retropolis By Night" is repetitive, but still somewhat hypnotizing because it's got a cool rhythm going for it. All very nice, and maybe even Bodin's 57 second piano piece "Romancing The City" should have been longer as well. It might have worked.
The best song, you may ask? Well, just like the title track, the 10 minute epic "There Is More To This World" does a great job of defining the spirit of the album. Basically, it combines the vibes of organ-happy, optimism filled Time And A Word-era Yes with the bombastic mid 70's synths and gorgeous acoustic guitar passages of Genesis. Yeah, it's kinda derivative to say the least, but it works for what it is. Both the midtempo and slow variations of the melody make it both an exciting rocker and a moving ballad - the blaring organs give it a great uptempo quality, and the ballad part is where Hasse Froberg, guest vocalist extraordinaire, takes the mike. That 'see how we run the fields / see how we touch the stars' part backed by elegant acoustic guitar is gorgeous, and it returns to the main hook of the song effectively.
Unlike the future double albums from the band or even a couple of their single albums (The Rainmaker, anyone?), the best virtue of Retropolis overall is that it offers good material without ever really getting boring. There are a few other songs I haven't mentioned in the closing nearly 9 minute ballad "The Road Back Home", which is essentially a tune where Roine sings a back and forth duet with himself over a really sorrowful epic melody, and although overlong, it has a good fast jam portion. There's also a couple of other numbers in the 7:40 range ("Silent Sorrow", "Judas Kiss") that are also good, but nothing particularly special or noteworthy, though the former track's uptempo chorus is among the better hooks on the whole album, and both are very listenable, like the album as a whole. Retropolis may only have one true high point, but thankfully there aren't any indulgent lows or obvious fillers here either.
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
HIGH POINTS: Kingdom Of Lies, Church Of Your Heart, Compassion. LOW POINTS: The End Of Innocence.
To put it simply, Roine Stolt and his band had been quite prolific so far, with three albums (including The Flower King) around more or less the 70 minute mark in three years. But overproductive bastards that they were, they apparently had so many songs worthy of inclusion on the next album that they decided to make it an over two hour long set (and it wouldn't be their last one, either - more on that later). Not only that, but several pieces on here contain hints of conceptuality to them, offering familiar melodic themes that build to, yes, a 25 minute epic title track that closes the entire thing. And yes, I was quite bored with the whole experience at first - sure, I heard several good songs, but not so many great ones that it wouldn't be incredibly easy to condense the thing down to 40-50 minutes. That ending epic seemed like a killer in terms of difficult listening, too. But fortunately, I had a strange desire to keep listening, and... this grew on me like nothing else.
In fact, if we just take disc one by itself, there isn't really anything weak, even if a couple songs aren't that great. The acoustic instrumental "Poor Mr. Rain's Ordinary Guitar" quite lives up to its' title (and that's not a compliment, though it's still at least pleasant), and the opening 10 minute "In The Eyes Of The World" just sounds like a great 5 minute pop song unnecessarily dragged out twice as long as it should be due to needless jamming (very fun buildup and overall listen, though, with very strange vocal effects throughout). Even the two other instrumentals in the 'jam' part of the album ("The Man Who Walked With Kings" and the 12 minute "Circus Brimstone") are thoroughly pleasurable, especially since they're reminiscent of the guitar-led jams on The Flower King, particularly the gorgeous melodies that pop out at me during the former. While the latter doesn't deserve all its' length (it should probably be cut to 6-8 minutes, and the intro's kind of a weak reworking of the atmosphere in King Crimson's "The Devil's Triangle"), but it certainly deserves a lot of it. Fine dynamics in the tradition of Retropolis here.
My two favorite songs on the disc, though, would have to be "Church Of Your Heart" and the closing "Compassion", songs as classic as classic can be for this band. The former seems a bit dull at first, but that gorgeously uplifting chorus with awesome harmonies really really grabbed me after a couple listens like uplifting hymn-like tunes should, and even though it's 9 minutes long, jamming here is mostly limited to expanding on the melody with 'church organ' atmosphere. The latter tune, meanwhile, is eerie - it's a sparsely arranged ballad with minimal electronic backing in the rhythm, distorted vocal effects, a haunting melody, and great booming backing vocals. It slowly builds up to the end well, too, with some great keyboard noises. Oh, and don't forget the 'relationship' song "Just This Once", with a hilariously noisy stop-start intro (you gotta hear the sound effects in this part) leading into a nice bluesy groove that carries the song.
While disc one is more or less one of the most consistent stretches of Flower Kings music, the second disc (the somewhat longer of the two at 71 minutes) is more of a mixed bag. Let's get the bad out of the way first - "The End Of Innocence" is one of those pieces that really makes me wish the band didn't put almost all of their mellow material in the second half of the listening experience - at 8 minutes long, it's slow, lethargic, and dull, dull, dull with very little melody (and I hate that minute and a half atmospheric ending). And although the first half of "The Merrygoround" is a near high point in containing some of the most exciting and bouncy moments on the entire album, effectively conveying the joyous mood of that amusement park ride in the melody and playing, the second half is a real low point, as it goes into a slow blues-tinged ballad that seems totally unrelated to the rest of the song. Big mistake there.
Thankfully, the remainder of the songs before the big epic are all good. There's a hypnotizing 7 minute acoustic groove in "Don Of The Universe" (which combines relaxing acoustic guitar with a great bassline and elements of both Eastern and jazz music), an okay ballad in "Ghost Of The Red Cloud", two short instrumentals in the opening pipe organ bit "Pipes Of Peace" and the relaxing piano of "If 28", and finally, the two big highlights here. "Different People" and "Kingdom Of Lies", strangely enough, are usually viewed as pieces that are just there to kill time for the title track, but I honestly find them to be excellent, both of them shots of uplifting positivity. The former's a fine social commentary piece with a wonderful acoustic guitar driven melody (and nice bassline), while the latter might actually be my favorite on the whole album - Hasse Froberg makes one of his mandatory guest vocal appearances, and the wonderful instrumental and vocal melodies are both gorgeous and perfectly suited for his more relaxing singing voice. The melodic flow and Stolt backing vocals are just perfect - why can't they write great pop songs like this that aren't marred by dull jamming more often?
Finally, there's that closing 25 minute title track I was mentioning before, and this might actually be one of the weak links on the album. Well, at least the second part is pretty much dominated by some of the most go-nowhere jamming on the album and a somewhat unmemorable, quiet ballad melody, so that entire section from about the 7 to the 14 or 15 minute mark can be tossed out the window. But if we discount that part, and the fact that the song takes way too long to build up, it's very very nice. Let's just say I can see why they only play the last 10 minutes (i.e. part 3) live - Froberg again takes the lead vocal portion, and I'm so glad for moments like these, because Stolt himself simply doesn't handle delicately moving vocal melodies like that as effectively.
Anyway, some of the best lyrics on an album from this band can be found here (very powerful imagery for the title), and the climactic 'stardust we are / close to divine' part reaches for the stars and hits them with a burst of glorious epic character. Simply awesome. The song also does an effective job of subtly building down from those highs, too, with a tight, memorable jam that both reprises what came before in the epic and also expands on it, with a gorgeous keyboard part coming out of it. One might find this piece incredibly lacking at first as I once did, and it does psychologically tire the listener out coming after sitting through 100 minutes of music (if they choose to do so, anyway - somehow it worked for me), but in the end, a good amount of it does reveal itself to be worthy. In retrospect, overlong as the album is in general, and difficult as it is to grade overall, I award it a somewhat high 7, but I can't give it higher right now on account of the excessive amount of less than awesome filler. Sorry.
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
HIGH POINTS: Stupid Girl, Simple Song, Corruption, Psycedelic Postcard, The Final Deal, Love Is The Word. LOW POINTS: Did I Tell You, Dungeon Of The Deep, Hudson River Sirens Call.
Again, this is long. I mean, Stardust We Are long (well, 10 minutes longer). Really overwhelming and nearly impossible to get through in one sitting' long. Ugh, does Roine Stolt have to be Mr. Prolific and release marathon albums of all the songs he records every year or so? Seriously, clocking in at two hours and twenty minutes, this is the fourth longest album of all-new studio material I'm aware of, topped only by Prince's Emancipation, The Clash's Sandinista! and 69 Love Songs by the Magnetic Fields (at least to my knowledge - if anyone can think of more, by all means, add them below!). With that in mind, it's easy to be skeptical about this album before listening to it (just like Stardust), but you know what? As far as double/triple albums go, Flower Power is one of the most consistently satisfying I can think of, though not as good quality-wise as the previous attempt. Sure, there are moments of boredom here and there, but there's very little truly weak, and if I could trim down the running time to about an hour of the best material, this could be an absolutely fantastic record for the neo-prog movement.
So what exactly is so fantastic here? Well, to begin with, there's that 18 part, 59 minute suite ("Garden Of Dreams") written by Stolt and keyboardist Tomas Bodin that opens the album. It might be almost three times as long as it really deserves to be (I'd cut it down to about 20-23 minutes myself), but for a nearly hour-long composition, it flows a lot more smoothly than you would expect. It's also one of those pieces where just as you feel like you're drowning in an ocean of boredom (the worst of which is the ambient-like, 'Dungeon Of The Deep', which is essentially four minutes of nothing but an pathetic attempt to pad this thing, and several of the slow parts, especially the droning 'Did I Tell You', are dull), you're rescued by some really kickass jam bits (like the great fast synth solos of the brilliantly-titled 'Attack Of The Monster Briefcase' and how the bits of 'Sunny Lane' and 'Shadowland' reprise the key melodies here), especially toward the last third of the suite, all of which help make for something spectacular.
It also helps that 'Simple Song' has one of the most beautifully delicate melodies this side of acoustic Genesis (and Roine must have realized this himself, as this is the one consistently repeating themes over the course of the whole album), and that 'Love Is The Word' is a really great quirky harmony-filled piece, and 'Don't Let The D'Evil In' qualifies as a solid enough hard rock moment that works as a diversion. The ending portion 'The Final Deal' is just about the perfect way to end the thing, too, as it has this huge, bombastic melody rooted in the great prog tradition - the way it slowly fades out into the quieter atmosphere brings such a pretty closure to the piece. And after that whole overwhelming suite is done, we get two short joke tracks totalling less than a minute long, then an eight minute instrumental called "Astral Dog" that serves its' purpose to relax the listener in quiet acoustic guitar paradise, though it's overlong by two or three minutes.
That first disc might not be the most exciting album in the world in all (it's about 6.5 or 7 quality), but the second disc is actually somewhat of an improvement. There's still some filler that doesn't really accomplish much (the instrumentals "Hudson River Siren's Call", a pretty tuneless little thing, and the pointless "Afterlife", plus I can't really remember all that much about "Painter", probably because I really want the album to end at this point), and both 11 minute songs ("Deaf, Numb And Blind", "Coming Home") are overlong by at least a few minutes. I would also recommend listening to only one disc at a time if that much, but several moments here are really worth your while. "Corruption" is an extremely catchy and ominous organ-led rocker with a really great riff for it and a complex melody, and the intro build and jam portions to the opening "Deaf, Numb And Blind" just flow seamlessly and breathtakingly enough to make me forget the rest of the song isn't too memorable.
As for the rest, "Psycedelic Postcard" (yes, that's the spelling for it) is just bizarre, with screwed up effects on Roine's vocals that add serious entertainment to an already extremely fun melody - it has multiple melodies, in fact, all of them highly hummable. More excellent experimental pop-prog that serves as a highlight. "Magic Pie" is also a nice, dreamy ballad written and sung by Hasse Froberg (I also find it strange that it's his one lead vocal contribution on a nearly 2-1/2 hour album, and he's credited for nothing else but backing vocals). I guess "Coming Home", despite some utterly overblown, silly lyrics and arrangement that doesn't flow worth a crap, has some good points to it (like, again, the jamming and the one 'coming home... coming hard' melody), too, so it's not really a total waste.
But the best of the lot comes in "Stupid Girl", a song which is of all things, a dance-prog number, just by its' general tone, as it's propelled by a danceable and addictive drum machine rhythm (plus that melody just screams contemporary R&B), the chorus is so catchy that it's one of those things you'll want to yell at the top of your lungs, and the multiple guitar solos and frenzied bass-driven jam at the end are great enough for me to call it undoubtedly the masterpiece of the entire listening experience. And if you ask me, Bodin's instrumental "Power Of Kindness" should have ended the entire set with its' beautiful recapping of some of the best moments on the album in instrumental form, but yet it's only the fourth track out of ten on the second disc. Pant... pant... pant... well, this album is certainly good, but it's pretty much just another example of the most blatantly obvious flaw with this band is. Here, I'll print it in big bold letters:
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COMMENTS
I disagree with you,Nick.This is the example of the Roine Stolt's giantomania-more than ten minutes compositions,BIG guitar and,of course,5 DOUBLE ALBUMS released with active participate of Stolt by 5 years(FK's Stardust We Are and Flower Power,Rainmaker with its limited edition abnd Transatlantic's limited editions of SMPTe and their third album).As for album-I LOVE "Garden Of Dreams"(did Stolt wrote something in that thing,BTW-I think that all was written by Bodin) and this is the only one(along with closing Bodin instrumental)real prog number on here.Another are finest examples of neo-prog and pop-prog.A strong 8.No else,sorry guys.
Actually, Aphex Twin's 1994 album Selected Ambient Works vol. II currently holds the record, I believe. Two discs, and both are 79 minutes long.
(reviewed by Nick Karn)
HIGH POINTS: Chicken Farmer Song, I Am The Sun (Part One), You Don't Know What You've Got, Rumble Fish Twist. LOW POINTS: Slave To Money.
Hey, an actual single album this time (well, only in the fact that it fits on one CD - it's still 76 friggin' minutes long)! And even better, it seems like they've finally reined in the more rambling tendencies of their song structures, with even the jams sounding like they're more based on terrific hooks and guitar work than random-sounding improvisation, and even the pointless little segue filler things have been obliterated. The result is a song collection that's far more focused and melodic than the previous few efforts - you have songs that begin and end with solid melodic themes, interesting multi-faceted passages that actually don't sound out of place with how the song originally began, and some of the absolute greatest melodies and ideas Roine and the gang have come up with. As a result, this is undoubtedly my favorite Flower Kings album, even surpassing Roine Stolt's The Flower King in quality, and probably one of the most solid neo-prog records you can find.
Of course, Space Revolver is hardly without its' problems, mainly within filler-ish moments in the second half of the album. The most obvious one seems to be "Slave To Money", which, no matter how hard I try, I can never remember how it goes, and nothing particularly special about jumps out while on either. In addition, while the first four minutes of the closing "I Am The Sun (Part Two)" are absolutely gorgeous, with an incredibly rich background of acoustic guitar, subtle percussion and flute-like keyboards driving an upbeat, life-affirming melody and hilarious lyrics, the remaining six minutes of it for the most part pointlessly reprise melodies from earlier and plod along on sloooow background atmospherics. And finally, "A King's Prayer" might be a nice excercise in spiritually-uplifting positivity, though it's definitely overlong, and the bombastic chorus melody is generic, not to mention the pace is too slow for an album nearly an hour old by this point.
However, the rest of this album, and there's still quite a bit of it left, has a lot of greatness within, enough I'd probably give it a 9 without much thought. I mean, look at the highlights we have here - the only epic piece over 10 minutes they ever did that justifies all of its' length in a big way, probably their best instrumental workout, maybe their best single song ever, a great acoustic pop ballad from Hasse Froberg and don't forget those first four minutes of the closer! And even the lesser remaining songs, like "Dream On Dreamer" and "Underdog", still work very well - the former a moody keyboard and saxphone drenched ballad that serves as a really nice breather from the long epic stuff here (better than any Tomas Bodin interlude piece, for sure), and the latter a slow, and also odd, slide guitar-driven, almost roots rock sounding song in the verses and a bombastic trumpet-driven harmony thing in the chorus. It's neat.
And the awesome stuff on here... wow. First off, there's that aforementioned epic, the opening 15 minute "I Am The Sun (Part One)", which starts itself off on a breathtaking introductory build driven by great keyboard melodies and flourishes and a slow, pounding vocal melody that attains such an unbelievable 'spacey' majesty, and moves itself flawlessly through a number of different sections and hooks (the gentle 'lay down, down...' and the sick avant garde jazz 'I left my heart in San Fransisco...' sections are damn cool!) before settling down after more frenzied, entertaining soloing into a very spare ballad section that really, really, really brings to mind vivid imagery of space. It's amazing what a few well placed notes on atmospheric keyboards, acoustic guitar, and a resonantly flowing set of vocal melodies can do to set that up (the ones in this section are definitely some of the most emotionally stirring in the band's discography).
But as great this epic is, and it definitely does qualify as one of the band's best compositions ever, there's also more cool stuff here! The aforementioned instrumental "Rumble Fish Twist", shockingly, is a Flower Kings jam that runs for over 8 minutes and deserves all of its' length, mainly through a bunch of incredibly entertaining quirky keyboard parts, sound effects and affecting guitar solos in its' faster first half (remember what I said about Roine Stolt's terrific playing talents!) and does more of that cool slow atmospheric spacey style in the second half, with some surprisingly effective minimalist melodies. And Hasse Froberg's aforementioned acoustic pop (slightly R&B flavored) ballad "You Don't Know What You've Got" is an effortlessly melodic singalong tune that has a very relaxing coffeehouse feel to it, not to mention gorgeous backing vocals, and even a Stevie Wonder-esque harmonica solo thrown in there.
Elsewhere, although from my understanding it's not that well liked among fans, I honestly feel that "Chicken Farmer Song" might be the greatest tune they've ever done, or at least in my top 3. It's not at all complex in arrangement (well, except for the short jam in the middle), but that vocal hook, or rather set of vocal hooks, are unbelievably great in their uplift, definitely inspiring in giving the listener 'peace of mind'. And finally, rounding things out, there's the overlong but still cool 12:53 epic "Monster Within", which actually merges a chiming, uplifting intro with menacing Sabbath-style riffing and bizarre distorted vocal effects successfully, also highlighted by a gripping Froberg vocal passage, some brief quirky comical part and an ending guitar line that's supposed to make you feel relaxed after the intensity. Some parts work better than others here, but overall a very good song. In all, while not perfect, Space Revolver contains the highest percentage of great, focused, and moving Flower Kings material, which really makes me wonder why they ceased to be really good immediately following it....
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
HIGH POINTS: Last Minute On Earth. LOW POINTS: Serious Dreamers, City Of Angels, Thru The Walls.
See, it's albums like this that are a good reason why I want to hear a band's whole catalog before reviewing them. The first time I listened to this album as my first exposure to The Flower Kings, I hated it. No, not just hated it - despised the hell out of it, and that surprised me a whole lot. From my initial listen, I thought it had virtually no redeeming qualities, the nadir of all things progressive I've ever heard - absolutely clueless jamming that made the songs long just for the sake of it and almost no structure so they could resolve themselves. And there was also the fact that a huge portion of the album was stuck in mellow New Age elevator music that created a dull, dull, dull effect, both singers had that tone in their voices that was good enough to listen to in small doses, but over a whole album, they became tiresome. Compound that with the fact that the whole thing is a nearly endless 77 minutes long, and that 3 of the first 5 tracks are in the 11-14 minute range. Needless to say, it was a nightmare to listen to again.
Well, my opinion on the album has improved, but it still remains a big letdown for me after the quite often magnificent Space Revolver. The really frustrating thing is that there are really quite a few interesting musical ideas and melodies on here, but not 77 minutes worth of them. You know, Transatlantic was a really outstanding supergroup of musicians, and quite a bit of their success had to do with the guitar work of Roine Stolt, but in contrast to that lousily-titled first effort of theirs and Space Revolver, his arrangements here are simply awful. For instance, the longest song at 13:49 ("Road To Sanctuary") has a really exciting build where the tune hits upon the perfect generic classic rock melody, but the other 10 minutes of the song are a huge disappointment, filled with dull mellow acoustic and ambient passages (in the middle they even come so close to playing the "X-Files" theme!), dumb bouncy keyboard and guitar melody, and no reasonable structure.
On the 12 minute "City Of Angels", a song already dangerously close to soulless lounge jazz, he obscures a really nice main melody (I don't even mind the cheesy chorus either) with completely non-descript keyboard dominated jamming. Ugh. As for "Elaine", I appreciate the sincerity and beautiful intent of it, and the melody is quite pretty, but I don't appreciate stupid lyrics like 'here she comes again, smiling like a horse' and really ugly sounding backing music (an instrumental break that sounds like bad Dave Matthews Band, an awful bass tone and awkward Mellotron). Not to mention "Thru The Walls" has no memorable qualities at all and the 9 minute ballad "Serious Dreamers" is boring beyond my ability to express, with an ok melody but no build or interest whatsoever. Even the ambience of the instrumental title song, which sounds straight out of a movie score, I really don't want to hear by this time, since the mellow mood the album has set up becomes so dull.
OK, enough complaining - there are some other fine moments on this album. The 11 minute opener "Last Minute On Earth", for one, is actually quite a good song despite the horrible chanting in the intro - the main melody is truly great and majestic (plus the lyrics have eerie significance in the wake of September 11th), and for once, the jamming and musical shifts it takes are a real thrill. "World Without A Heart" is a pretty acoustic tune that thankfully doesn't even try to become progressive, and I'm all the more thankful for that. "Blessing Of A Smile" and "Red Alert" are also quite good short instrumental pieces (the latter containing a nice reprise of the fantastic intro from "Road To Sanctuary"). Also, "Sword Of God", while hardly all that great, is just about the only moment where the band sort of rocks out on the overly mellow side 2. So that's it. It's still a pity that this band doesn't have a member who can arrange songs decently, or an editor who could give this album a tolerable length, or else I could see just as much potential in this as some of the earlier work. But as it is, this is a real chore to listen to in one sitting.
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COMMENTS
You are right about this CD = a boring 5. The Flower Kings is a O.K. band but lacks of consistency. If you want to buy something from that band, go with their live album.
SUCKS!
This is the worst Flower Kings record ever-with strong influence from Spock's Beard Day For Night and Transatlantic second album with all of these stupid FK jams-what can be worse?All songs on here suck(including 2nd bonus disk)...A 2.
P.S.Maybe Ronie and Tomas should invite "music machine" Neal Morse to write them Spock's Beard album,eh?
P.P.S.I'm waiting you to review their best-Retropolis or Stolt's solo album9and first FK album,in fact) The Flower King.Be sure to find it somewhere!
(reviewed by Nick Karn)
HIGH POINTS: Monkey Business, Fast Lane. LOW POINTS: The Navigator, Soul Vortex.
Oh boy, yet another two hours plus marathon Flower Kings album, further proving that the phrase 'cutting room floor' doesn't exist in Roine Stolt's vocabulary (though there's actually a non-album bonus track here this time in the 10 minute jam "Too Late For Tomatos"). And coming off what I thought was by far their least focused and weak effort in The Rainmaker, the prospect of a followup this long didn't exactly exite me. Sure enough, I did feel unbearable boredom with the whole thing at first, as if I was listening to one unspectacular song over and over, with all these different sections and jams that didn't sound like they belonged in the same song, but thankfully, Unfold The Future reveals more quality with each listen. Another thing is that this might be the most textured and ambitious Flower Kings effort, with a whole crapload of instrumentation and quirky little arrangement tricks thrown all over the place, which coupled with the length, makes it an album you could analyze for an extremely long time and still find something new. But is doing that really worth it?
I say, "Not really." While this is definitely a step up from The Rainmaker, the actual songs and melodies these nuances are found in leave a lot to be desired. Take the 31 minute album-opening "The Truth Will Set You Free", probably the most textured of these songs. You'll find such stuff as marimba and other assorted percussion, church organs, two basslines going on at once in the intro buildup, sitars, mellotron, acoustic guitar, a wide variety of keyboard tones, and so on. Several memorable melodies do show up here, for sure, but the problem with this half-hour monster is that it tries to pass itself off as one really long epic pop tune with this huge optimistic refrain, yet it really just smudges that in with three different unrelated ballads (the best of which is an Eastern sounding one near the end) interspersed with stretches of quirky jamming (the last section of which takes way too long to build up to the song's conclusion). It's all okay (I particularly love how it snaps right into an acoustic/marimba shuffle 5-1/2 minutes in), but also at least twice as long as it should be, and the structure is nothing I haven't heard before from the band or prog rock in general.
The rest of the first disc is more inventive than that, at least, though it only really hits greatness in the singalong "Monkey Business". The keyboard riff might be a faster reworking of the intro to "Monster Within", but the rhythm and vocal hooks - both Stolt's faster verse and Froberg's slower chorus - are extremely addictive (especially when entertaining loud handclaps and funky clavinet come in), and the lyrics are really amusing. It might be 'only' 4:20 or so, but I think it's still the best damn song on here. Screw 'epic' structures, I say. To a lesser extent, the 8 minute free-form jam "Christianopel" is also quite interesting - the arrangement is an acquired taste, since it combines disconnected percussion, keyboard and guitar line fragments in the first half with laid back Santana-esque jamming in the second, but while overlong, it does have a loose 'the Flower Kings jamming in a murky basement' quality that I really like.
The other four songs on the disc have their moments, but none of them come into their own as great songs or anything. I like the way "Black And White" basically goes from an adult contemporary ballad (complete with electric piano) to a long stretch of bouncy keyboard jamming, though it's not exactly what you'd call spectacularly memorable. Elsewhere, the buildup to "Silent Inferno" is a pounding and extremely evil-sounding organ and heavy riffing paradise, plus it's got an eerie melody backed by a neat guitar tone, but the rest of its' meandering 14 minute arrangement just doesn't do anything particularly noteworthy to my ears. Then there are the shorter ballads in the 'silly pompous lyrics combined with dippy melody and backing music' of "The Navigator", and "Vox Humana" bases its' hook on a section found 12 minutes into "The Truth Will Set You Free". Why are you guys reprising stuff from a friggin' 30 minute song???? Don't you have anything better to do??? Jesus.
Disc two is pretty much more of the same, which means it rarely is worse than decent, but usually not better than that either. "Genie In A Bottle" is superior to the Christina Aguilera song of the same name, obviously, though its' funky groove I know I've heard from a previous song probably buried within one of their other endless albums, and that ballad part seems incredibly out-of-place. There's also more somewhat dull instrumentals (the utterly pointless and boring "Christianopel" retread "Soul Vortex" and the incredibly complex and jazzy though very repetitive "The Devil's Danceschool"), more "The Truth Will Set You Free" reprising ("Grand Old World" this time is an introspective elevator music reworking of the 31 minute monster's marimba intro), and prog-pop balladry I can only vaguely remember and don't feel like particularly discussing now ("Man Overboard", "Solitary Shell").
I rather like the remaining three songs on here, though. On these, Roine decided to bring in guest vocalist Daniel Gildenlow of Pain Of Salvation fame to help out (alternating with Stolt and Froberg, of course). It definitely sounds like he had a hand in the construction of vocal melodies to "Fast Lane" and "Rollin' The Dice", as their unconventional structure strangely benefits the former's bouncy 'riding down the highway' atmosphere (moving through different hooks nicely), and helps the latter transcend its' goofy organ part. Very emotional vocals and dramatic flow on that one. He also shows up on the final epic, the 25 minute closer "The Devil's Playground" (there we go with the hard listens again), singing on the desperate, eerie choruses ('this is how you raise the Cain, this is how you teach your children...'). As for the rest of the song, it's strange - it combines a symphonic, ambient feel in the buildup with the craziest saxophone jamming this side of Court-era King Crimson (with the saxes often sounding as if a party's gonna break out or something). Again, there's a lot of long and needless jamming scattered around, but it deserves more of its' length than "The Truth Will Set You Free", that's for sure.
Blah, I don't know why I wrote such a long review for this one, since this album doesn't deserve one as much as, for instance, Space Revolver and Stardust We Are do. Unlike previous albums, I doubt this could even be turned into something excellent were it a reasonable length single album - several of these songs have a number of cool ideas and of course fantastic playing to go along with rich instrumentation, but when you add them all up, most of them only strike me as just decent, with very few of them ranking as Flower Kings classics for me. You know, I think there is such a thing as too much music to take in at one time, as obsessive a listener as I can be. And that's never been more apparent with The Flower Kings than this album.
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