What's the best flower king extended epic?

_Stardust We Are: A melodic, coherent extended epic which brings all the album together and finishes with anthemic choruses and uplifting/intense instrumentation.

_Garden of Dreams: A gigantic and diverse 1-hour long suite that gives you a ride to many different moods and genres. The epic where Tomas Bodin had a large role.

_I Am The Sun: The hard rock choruses, the beautiful acoustics, the light pastoral section, the spacey finale. The epic divided in two.

_The Truth Will Set You Free: a fan favorite, showing the band's instrumental prowess, as well as having memorable melodies.

_Devil's Playground: another fan favorite, with its dirty guitar/sax riff, the sing-along verse/choruses "This is how you raise the Cain", the sinister heavy metal,  the Frank Zappa influences, the mad Avant-garde jazz-fusion bit, the grand finale.

_Love Supreme: The kind of Yes-like song that satisfies your Yes-appetite due to them not writing anything since 2001. Having great 3-part harmonies and a passionate climax.

_Monsters & Men: The mid-tempo epic which summarizes why we love the band and make us wonder how they keep coming up with epics.

_Love is the Only Answer: A very diverse epic ranging from AOR, hard rock, to Frank-Zappa influenced madness. Full of unexpected twists and turns.

And if you consider Hummanizmo a Flower Kings epic, then the one that has one of the longest and most beautiful introductory melodies of the Flower Kings, and showcases brilliant instrumental sections where Roine handles guitars, bass, and keys.

Goodness, I love love love all but two of these (Monsters & Men and Garden of Dreams are good but the former isn't as memorable as the rest and the latter is a bit too long and choppy to me to earn triple-love). If forced to choose, I would say my favorite is one of the ones from Unfold the Future. While "Devil's Playground" has the more powerful ending, there are more standout moments throughout the entire duration of "The Truth Will Set You Free" so I'll pick that one.

Wow, what a hell of a poll. 

Hard to choose here, but in the end I have to go with Monsters and Men. All of these are killers though.

I love "Stardust We Are". Favorite from this bunch.

E

Hard choice for me too.     Great list of tunes!   In a very close race, Strardust gets the nod. 

For me it's Stardust we are, Monsters & men is a close second.

Omg, I didn't noticed that Love is the only answer was on the list!


Edited by JoaoPirucas - September 24 2008 at 11:16

Garden of Dreams, no question.  Of course, I notice I'm very much in the minority, but I think it is quite simply the best song they've ever done (if you can really call it a song).  I love every minute of it, both studio and live versions.  Great stuff.

I go with fan favorite Truth will set you free. btw where is Driver's Seat?

it's shorter than any of the other tracks in here ... if I put this, then someone would ask why Big Puzzle/Road to Sanctuary/Sum of no Reason are not there ... plus I can't imagine it getting more than a couple of votes at most.

I don't know the first 2 but for the rest I really love all.

You forgot Driver's Seat from Adam & Eve, which I really love too.

Tough between I Am The Sun(both parts) and Love Supreme. I'll go with I Am the Sun this time.