The Flower Kings - By Royal Decree - 4 March 2022

[SRS]

From Inside Out

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Prog icons The Flower Kings are pleased to announce the release of their 15th studio album ‘By Royal Decree’, set for 4th March 2022. The band have also announced the first live dates in support of the album, taking place in Sweden beginning end of March 2022.

The band are back at their most creative, flowery and playful – mirroring the 70’s melting pot of folk, symphonic, electronic, jazz, blues, funk & prog. On the new album they have looked for more organic and vintage sounds, still centered around the foundation of drums, bass, guitars and the iconic Hammond, grand piano, mellotron & Moog synthesizers.

The album also sees the return of founding member Michael Stolt, who takes up bass guitar and vocals, alongside the line-up of Mirko DeMaio on drums, Zach Kamins on keyboards, Hasse Fröberg on vocal & guitar and Roine Stolt on vocal & guitars. The band convened in the middle of 2021 at Fenix Studios in Sweden to record through the fully analogue Rupert Neve mixing desk. The album also features beautiful cover art, once again created by Denver-based artist Kevin Sloan.

Next years tour will also see the band revisiting their early years, performing tracks from ‘Retropolis’, ‘Stardust We Are’, ‘Flower Power’, ‘Space Revolver’ and ‘Back In The World Of Adventures’. This will coincide with the release of newly remastered editions of The Flower Kings albums on CD & Vinyl later in 2022. The first confirmed live dates are as follows:

30th March 2022 – Katalin, Uppsala, Sweden
31st March 2022 – Musikens Hus, Gothenburg, Sweden
1st April 2022 - Södra Teatern, Stockholm, Sweden

Look out for more information on the new album, pre-orders and the first single on the 10th December.

[Plasmatopia]

Cautiously optimistic, but at this point I'm probably more excited to pick up a couple of the remasters. I hope I feel differently after hearing the new one.

[Progatron]

Michael Stolt instead of Jonas Reingold, who I assume is too busy with the Hackett band.

[SRS]

Michael Stolt instead of Jonas Reingold, who I assume is too busy with the Hackett band.

Both Michael and Jonas will be playing on the new album, but only Michael for live dates 2022. Correct, Hackett band commitments will prevent Jonas from playing with TFK next year.

Jonas Lindberg will also guest on new album on one song playing bass. Roine will guest on his album also coming out next year. And in other surprising and happy news Hasse Bruniusson will also be back on the new album. (First time i think since The Sum of No Evil 2007)

[bill g]

Beautiful cover. I like the idea of going for a more organic sound.

[SRS]

yes that cover artwork is beautiful! By Kevin Sloan who also did Waiting for Miracles. Somehow his color palette and subject matter seem to fit the TFK universe in my mind.
I like when bands use the same artist for a 'set' of albums. Like TFK previously did with Silas Toball (Agents of Mercy, Desolation Rose, Banks of Eden, Anderson/Stolt)

Islands was cool with Roger Dean but to be honest I'm really glad Kevin Sloan returned for the new one. Hope we get an album track listing soon.

[Rufus]

Is it a double or is that a silly question!

[Steve983]

Flower Kings used to be an auto buy for me but not anymore, I'll give it a listen on Youtube but I've found their last few albums very poor.

[Rufus]

Waiting for Miracles was a great return to form, Islands not so much. Still an auto buy!

[SRS]

And reminder fans we get an early Flower Kings (related) fix this Friday

New HFMC (Hasse Fröberg & Musical Companion ) will be released on the 26th. I've got my pre-order in https://hfmc.bandcamp.com/releases

[JKL2000]

This will coincide with the release of newly remastered editions of The Flower Kings albums on CD...later in 2022.

Good, it's been too long since the last reissues!

Thanks for the news, SRS, good to hear!

[doh]

And reminder fans we get an early Flower Kings (related) fix this Friday

New HFMC (Hasse Fröberg & Musical Companion ) will be released on the 26th. I've got my pre-order in https://hfmc.bandcamp.com/releases

Thanks! I didn't know that was on the way also.

[SunshipVoyager1976]

This will coincide with the release of newly remastered editions of The Flower Kings albums on CD...later in 2022.

Good, it's been too long since the last reissues!

Thanks for the news, SRS, good to hear!

As someone who never “pulled the trigger” on any of their work on CD, this is kind of cool. I will definitely cherry pick some of the reissues.

[chalkpie]

Flour Pour on vinyl would be pretty cool. A warmer remastering would also he cool.

[3LockBox]

Flower Kings on vinyl - what's that like, a 6-disc set?

[Splicer]

I'm still hooked on this band so it's going to be an instant buy. I wasn't thrilled with the last one because it seemed that songs just ended rather than being completed. Waiting for Miracles was good.

[zeprogmeister]

"Remasters" lol. Just call them reissues. There's no need to remaster previous stuff.

[Plasmatopia]

Flower Kings on vinyl - what's that like, a 6-disc set?

600

[Plasmatopia]

"Remasters" lol. Just call them reissues. There's no need to remaster previous stuff.

For most of the albums I would agree and you could argue one remaster yielded mixed results (no pun intended). For example the remix of Unfold The Future had the benefit of new sounds on a couple tracks (which you can agree or disagree whether they added to the result - I tend to like those additions). It also revealed what I see as some of the weaknesses of the recording of various instruments which had previously been glossed over with compression (and I'm not sure what else) that sort of glued everything together sonically and made those weaknesses less apparent. The integration of the original tracks with more recently recorded additions did not seem that organic. The newer tracks seemed of a higher, more pristine quality than some of the original tracks. But that was likely due to many of the new tracks being virtual instruments.

I think Flower Power is a prime candidate for a remaster, but I can't imagine how Space Revolver would be improved (as one example).


Edit: I should probably point out that I'm thinking more in terms of remixes. I really don't need a remaster of anything in the TFK catalog.

[chalkpie]

"Remasters" lol. Just call them reissues. There's no need to remaster previous stuff.

I think that depends on many factors. Mastering has come along way since 1998, so its quite possible that these albums could end up sounding better - warmer, more detail, less compressed, etc etc. Or they could sound worse as well know, but I doubt Roine would regress on the sound of his albums.

[miamiscot]

The returns of:

Michael Stolt
Kevin Sloan
Hasse Bruniusson

This has all the earmarks of a masterpiece.

[miamiscot]

Already released on vinyl:

Stardust We Are
Unfold The Future
Banks Of Eden
Desolation Rose
Waiting For Miracles
Islands

Never on vinyl:

Back In The World Of Adventures
Retropolis
Flower Power
Space Revolver
The Rainmaker
Adam & Eve
Paradox Hotel
The Sum Of No Evil

And The Flower King on vinyl would be a nice bonus!!!

I'm about to go broke!!!

[yesstiles]

"Remasters" lol. Just call them reissues. There's no need to remaster previous stuff.

Are you joking? Their masterwork Flower Power has abysmal compressed mastering. Can't wait until they fix and reissue that one!

[yesstiles]

Waiting for Miracles was a great return to form, Islands not so much. Still an auto buy!

I agree that Waiting For Miracles is by far their best album in the past decade. I hope the new one returns some long, flowery instrumental sections to songs again.

Waiting for Miracles was a great return to form, Islands not so much. Still an auto buy!

I agree that Waiting For Miracles is by far their best album in the past decade. I hope the new one returns some long, flowery instrumental sections to songs again.

[thedunno]

I thought waiting for miracles was fine but sounded a bit as FK by numbers. The shorter, more focused, tunes from Islands was as a breath of fresh air to me. I hope they continue in this direction. They have done enough epics.