STARDUST WE ARE

4 stars Ahh, the ever controversial Flower Kings. A band often maligned for creating music they themselves would want to hear. Maybe the critics just don't have a lot of free time to listen to all the massive releases by this band? :) For me, they embody everything I love about prog music. Which, I admit, doesn't always work as well as it should. When I first started listening to this band, this album was considered their masterpiece. I would say that for me, they are all masterpieces of a sort. If a masterpiece has to have every track being brilliant and excellent, then I'm not sure if there is a prog band in existence that has created such a work (though some non-prog bands have done it I think). But I digress. Getting back to the album in question, I think it has quite a bit of excellent material. The first CD is almost flawless, with only Church Of Your Heart seeming a bit too derivative of Yes for comfort. Still, it is a very good song, and can't be faulted for showing such obvious Yes influence. Just This Once is one of my favorite Flower Kings tracks ever, though it seems most fans over look it. And Circus Brimstone is a brilliant instrumental workout that I think is one of their best.

Disc 2 is a bit less consistent for me. Two songs spoil it for me: Kingdom Of Lies and Different People. While I understand why they are on the album, and they serve a purpose (representing 80's style pop rock and more traditional pop respectively) I just don't like them very much. While the reggae song, Ghost Of The Red Cloud works pretty well and has a stunning guitar solo to make it worthwhile, these two songs are, dare I say it, cheesy. Still, the song The Merrygoround is outstanding, and of course the epic title track is beautiful and almost worth the price of the album. The other songs on CD2 are decent enough, if a bit underwhelming (I do like Don Of The Universe.............I'm a fan of most Flower Kings instrumentals though).

So all in all, not a masterpiece by my reckoning. Still a solid 4 star album, and not a bad place for a newbie to start (though one of the single CD albums might be less risky).