RETROPOLIS

The second studio album of The Flower Kings "Retropolis" which was recorded 1996 is the next album for me to review. It is a quite long lasting album with a lot of music to listen to. The present musicians are Roine Stolt(guitar, vocals, keyboards), Tomas Bodin(organ, piano, mellotron), Michael Stolt(bass), Hasse Bruniusson(percussion, drums), Jaime Salazar(drums and percussion), Hans Fröberg(vocals) and Ulf Wallander(soprano saxophone). You who know about how The Flower Kings uses to sound will recognize also this record. The cover shows a science fiction inspired picture of a futuristic city.

As I told you, the music is very typical for this band and I like a lot of what I hear. The main theme for example: "Retropolis" is very fine in many ways even without vocals and parts of the other songs are also very good. Though must I say the over all feeling of this music is that it is extended. It feels they have drawn out the music to been just long and so. I don't hear so much variation either. I am sorry but "Retropolis" didn't catch enough of my attention to be interesting. I would say this record proves some instrumental skills and good musicalic work but I lack both originality and creativity. It's strange with The Flower Kings' music because on record can be so good and another just stretched and boring.

It feels like the band was caught in their own world, stuck around some musical thoughts that already were over exploited. As I wrote, my feelings towards this band use to shift a lot. Not they're bad.

I think you must be a real fan of this band to get so much from this album. It is not extremely bad and parts of it are really good so this album will receive two stars from me!