The Flower Kings studio albums listening thread

[Louis Arsenault-mahjoubi]

I actually really like this album 4.5, or more... Surely biased because it's one of the first I've bought. Retropolis is an instrumental that really makes Roine creativity shine, with an unusually ( for him) aggressive guitar solo which is OK, although, I like it less then the usual more melodic ones.

Rhythm of the sea, is pretty straight forward relaxed song. It does have an epic keyboard riff that is repeated once and a quicker section, to keep the song interesting and enjoyable.

There is more to this world is as stated before the core of the album and the best song on it, easily a 10/10.

Melting Pot and the piano solo before it are good instrumentals and the first one has some crazy sax section and a melody similar to one at the end of Retropolis.

Silent sorrow doesn't really feel like a Flower Kings song at first but, the instrumental section makes it a good listen and it gives it a worthy place on a Flower Kings Album.

Judas Kiss is pretty good, I like the guitar melody and the lyrics.

Flora Majora is one of my favorite instrumentals by The Flower Kings, joyful main theme with some darker sections and some cool passages. There's a cool acoustic guitar riff thing that last for like 5 seconds that adds to the song. The guitar solo the builds up through the song and exchanges with the keyboard riff is really the main attraction here and I've tried the learn the guitar section by here but, I've only made it to a little more then half.

The Road back home is a great closer: joyful, relaxing.

[Strong PROGress]

Greetings Prog Heads! First post here, really happy to find this forum.

I'm looking forward to the write-up for Flower Power. That's the way I started with The Flower Kings, therefore I'm biased towards it. Something about the giant epic, perhaps.

NP: Transatlantic "Duel with the Devil"

[Garden Dreamer]

Welcome, Strong PROGress! I should have the Stardust review up by end of the week, been sidetracked. Yes, can't wait to get to Flower Power too as that was also my "gateway" to TFK.

[Louis Arsenault-mahjoubi]

I also can't wait,
Garden of Dreams was the first TFK songs I listened ever. Such an amazing song

[Garden Dreamer]

Stardust We Are
Their fourth studio album was their first double CD and they really hit it out of the park with this one, a solid 5+ stars. It includes three iconic TFK songs, "In the Eyes of the World," "Church of Your Heart" and the first 20+minute epic since the first album, the title track. Other vocal tunes are top-shelf and melodic -- "Just This Once," "The End of Innocence", "The Merry Go Round", "Different People", "Ghost of the Red Cloud" and "Kingdom of Lies", along with three good instrumentals and a handful of short transitional pieces.

Hasse Froberg is getting more of a vocal role by this album but the bulk is still handled by Roine. Overall I'd say they put more emphasis on songwriting with this album and less emphasis on instrumentals; there aren't quite the number of blazing guitar parts you hear on earlier albums despite two CDs of music.

[Azol]

By the way, Church Of Your Heart was easily done even better on Alive On Planet Earth.

And The Merrygoround is one of those underrated jems in TFK catalogue.

[Rufus]

The title track is truly epic & probably their best !

[Splicer]

One of these days I'm going to spend a few weeks listening to nothing but The Flower Kings just to listen for all the musical motifs that pop up from album to album. I sometimes hear songs on one album that feature a melody line that seems derived from a motif or lick from an earlier record. Was it written around the same time and left off the other record or is it a conscious effort to create an overarching theme from album to album by recapitulating melodies?

[Garden Dreamer]

Picking this thread up again after a 4-year break! Up next we have their 1999 magnum opus, FLOWER POWER!! This was the first TFK album I owned and I quickly bought all the previous ones. More of a psychedelic feel to this one and it's still pretty much Roine's baby as Hasse still has limited vocals. This is also the final album with Michael Stolt on bass. No saxophone on this one but there's enough of Roine's great guitar tone.

Opens with the one-hour epic "Garden of Dreams" (from whence my screen name comes). This is sort of an epic in the same way that Transatlantic's "Whirlwind" is an epic -- a bunch of connected songs that could have easily stood on their own. Lots of great classic TFK moments in here including the "big heavy riff" tune "Don't let the D'evil In" and "Attack of the Monster Briefcase". It does bog down midway through with a couple of weird segments that are skippable; thankfully the song is broken into 18 parts on the CD changer so that you can hit the skip button. That would be enough music for most bands, but we're still not finished with the first disc! After two short "silly" tracks (1 minute of sped-up carnival music and a 5-second drum bit!) it closes with the 8-minute instrumental, "Astral Dog" with some tasty playing from Roine.

Disc 2 is a string of one great tune after another - "Deaf Numb and Blind", "Stupid Girl", "Corruption", "Power of Kindness" and "Psychedelic Postcard" that showcase the album's psych vibe. After a skippable ambient tune with an operatic female voice, things hit a snag with Hasse Froberg's only contribution, "Magic Pie" with its cheesy lyrics. At least it was the inspiration for a band name for another great Swedish band! The album closes strong with more great tunes, "Painter" and "Calling Home", both of which feature a bit more of Hasse sharing vocals with Roine, then closes with "Afterlife", an instrumental that restates some of the earlier melodies. All in all, this album contains a lot of strong melodies and still holds up well to my ears - a solid 4.8 out of 5!!

[Garden Dreamer]

[aith01]

Really, really liked a good portion of Flower Power. Gosh, the tune "Psychedelic Postcard" contains some of my favorite TFK moments, like the vocal trade-off between Roine and Hasse during the big middle section.

And "Astral Dog" is just a beautiful Zappa-esque slice of instrumental heaven.

[yesstiles]

"Garden of Dreams" is their highwater mark imo. Absolutely love it. I want to make a one-track cdr of that tune combining the extended "Garden of Dreams Part 1" from the live cd, connected to the remainder of the song from the studio, and with "Don't Let The Devil In" edited out.

[miamiscot]

Flower Power is every bit as good as Stardust We Are. Just a great album from one of my favorite bands ever.

[infandous]

Flower Power contains my favorite piece of music ever by TFK's (or maybe anyone), Garden Of Dreams. I think it works well as a whole piece, though it's obviously a suite of songs tied together musically and lyrically (more lyrically than musically, but there are quite a lot of melodies that come up across the whole piece, not always easily recognizable). Great stuff. For a long time, the second CD was my least favorite CD of theirs. Now I would say a lot of it has grown on me and there are a couple great tracks and a few more really good ones. Not a fan of Magic Pie (the song) though really...mostly due to the lyrics, which I just find cringingly corny (which for TFK's, is really saying something, lol.......they have been my favorite band for 20 years, so I'm not trying to take a dig, just being honest).

What's really cool about Astral Dog, is that Salazar was actually playing the drum part to a song on Roine's Hydrophonia album in the studio (probably to warm up or something). Roine recorded it and decided to play something completely different over it. I just always thought it was cool how he put that together using a drum part from a different song of his (of course Salazar also played on the Hydrophonia original). I'm not sure which song it was, as when Roine related this he couldn't remember which one it was either.

[bill g]

Garden of Dreams is probably my favorite piece by them as well. Well I'd skip 'Don't Let The D'Evil In' and Tomas' spacey thing that comes shortly after, but up until '...D'evil..' and the last few parts are killer. I find 'Stardust..' to be their most consistent album though, with no filler whatsoever.

[the winter tree]

Picking this thread up again after a 4-year break! Up next we have their 1999 magnum opus, FLOWER POWER!! This was the first TFK album I owned and I quickly bought all the previous ones. More of a psychedelic feel to this one and it's still pretty much Roine's baby as Hasse still has limited vocals. This is also the final album with Michael Stolt on bass. No saxophone on this one but there's enough of Roine's great guitar tone.

Opens with the one-hour epic "Garden of Dreams" (from whence my screen name comes). This is sort of an epic in the same way that Transatlantic's "Whirlwind" is an epic -- a bunch of connected songs that could have easily stood on their own. Lots of great classic TFK moments in here including the "big heavy riff" tune "Don't let the D'evil In" and "Attack of the Monster Briefcase". It does bog down midway through with a couple of weird segments that are skippable; thankfully the song is broken into 18 parts on the CD changer so that you can hit the skip button. That would be enough music for most bands, but we're still not finished with the first disc! After two short "silly" tracks (1 minute of sped-up carnival music and a 5-second drum bit!) it closes with the 8-minute instrumental, "Astral Dog" with some tasty playing from Roine.

Disc 2 is a string of one great tune after another - "Deaf Numb and Blind", "Stupid Girl", "Corruption", "Power of Kindness" and "Psychedelic Postcard" that showcase the album's psych vibe. After a skippable ambient tune with an operatic female voice, things hit a snag with Hasse Froberg's only contribution, "Magic Pie" with its cheesy lyrics. At least it was the inspiration for a band name for another great Swedish band! The album closes strong with more great tunes, "Painter" and "Calling Home", both of which feature a bit more of Hasse sharing vocals with Roine, then closes with "Afterlife", an instrumental that restates some of the earlier melodies. All in all, this album contains a lot of strong melodies and still holds up well to my ears - a solid 4.8 out of 5!!

I'm probably the only one here who really digs " Magic Pie".

[Garden Dreamer]

Time for SPACE REVOLVER! Well, I think this is my favorite TFK album! Listened to it 3 times over the past week and wow, this encapsulates everything about TFK in a concise single disc. What's new - the arrival of Jonas Reingold on bass has upped the already great musicianship of this band several notches with his alternating crunchy and fretless sounds. Also this album marks increased vocal presence for Hasse Froberg, which is fine with me because I like the interplay of the two voices. Also, Ulf Wallander is back on sax. I thought Jamie Salazar was still on drums (isn't that him in the band pictures?) but he's not listed in the credits and only Hasse Bruniuson is credited with percussion. Those who find TFK too long and meandering will have nothing to complain about with this album.

There are no stand-alone instrumentals such as short piano interludes, ambient sounds, segues etc. which are marked as separate songs. But nearly every song goes through a half-dozen or more changes of sound, tempo, mood, riffs... it's incredible how they careen from one style to another within a song and on this album it really works well.

While there are no long epics (i.e. 20+ minutes), the album opens with I Am The Sun (Pt. 1) at 15 minutes. We've got the classic TFK sound and eventually the song breaks down into other parts, with a jazzy interlude of sax and fretless bass, then off to some weirdness with sounds and voices and finishing up with a gentle acoustic guitar and Roine singing. Into the short mellow tune "Dream on Dreamer" with Roine singing and electric piano anchoring with fretless bass and sax. The song ends with a child's windup lullaby toy then you are jarred back to the waking state by the rollicking instrumental "Rumble Fish Twist", driven by some blustery drumming. This also breaks down into other parts and we get a short fretless solo from Jonas and it's obvious he's expanded the TFK sound palette considerably. The song winds down into a moody part, then we're on to the "big heavy riff" of "Monster Within", the second-longest song on the album at 13 minutes, that also goes through many exciting moods and changes.

"Chicken Farmer Song" starts off as the "happy-chirpy" song of the album with Roine doing the verses and Hasse handling the choruses but it eases into some cool instrumental parts where it sounds like the band is playing in one time signature and the drummer in another.

Next up, "Underdog"... is this possibly my favorite TFK song? Wow, this has everything. The opening bagpipes and that sweet slide guitar, then that swaggering drum beat. Again with Roine on verses and Hasse on choruses, I'm loving the vocal interplay. Later, some "Penny Lane"-type trumpet is introduced and this whole song is goosebump-inducing. A short breather with Hasse's acoustic "You Don't Know What You Got", then into "Slave to Money" which closes with a tasty solo from Roine.

Another killer up next, "A King's Prayer". Maybe this is my favorite TFK tune? More Roine-verse/Hasse-chorus interplay and a dramatic buildup with chimes and then a brief quote of the "Monster Within" riff, and onto the finale, "I Am the Sun (Pt.2)". Some silly lyrics in the opening acoustic part then a build up to a huge-sounding, slow dramatic finale. A perfect 5-star album!!

[Garden Dreamer]

(wrong album cover shown here)

[ThomasKDye]

(wrong album cover shown here)

"Space Revolver" is also my favorite. There's just not a bad track on it. I don't think I've listened to another TFK album that's been its equal. The final five minutes of "I Am The Sun, part II" are just incredible and transcendent. Jonas Reingold has never been more effective with his fretless bass.

[moecurlythanu]

I got off the bus after The Rainmaker and never heard the later albums, but I agree, Space Revolver is their best.

[Poisoned Youth]

I got off the bus after The Rainmaker and never heard the later albums, but I agree, Space Revolver is their best.

I loved everything up through Space Revolver but was really disappointed when Rainmaker came out. While I prefer most of the work pre-Rainmaker, I do recommend Unfold the Future.

[chalkpie]

SR and Unfold were always my favorites from these guys, although I haven't heard the last 2 or 3.

[Plasmatopia]

I gave Banks Of Eden another spin about a week ago at the gym. I skipped "Numbers" and started with the second tune. To me that's all super solid stuff from that point on (not that I dislike Numbers). None of the ambient diversions some folks have no patience for. Just well put together tunes, IMO. I was inspired to try to learn (one day soon) the bass lines to "For The Love Of Gold", "Pandemonium", and "For Those About To Drown". Barely a note wasted in any of those tunes.

[yesstiles]

I was really let down with Space Revolver. "I Am The Sun Parts 1 & 2" are magnificent and near the peak of Flower Kings music, but for me this album is filled with a lot of tuneless filler ("The Monster Within" a prime example). There are a few other tracks that are indeed worthwhile, like "A King's Prayer," but I had to remove several songs from the tracklist and add in bonus material from the album sessions to create something more cohesive and enduring for my ears.

[aith01]

I was really let down with Space Revolver. "I Am The Sun Parts 1 & 2" are magnificent and near the peak of Flower Kings music, but for me this album is filled with a lot of tuneless filler ("The Monster Within" a prime example). There are a few other tracks that are indeed worthwhile, like "A King's Prayer," but I had to remove several songs from the tracklist and add in bonus material from the album sessions to create something more cohesive and enduring for my ears.

I wasn't aware there was bonus material from the Space Revolver sessions. What were the track names?