Flower Kings Appreciation Thread

^ As You know - I don't really listen to anything other than Symphonic/Neo prog and progressive metal....Plenty to go at yet I reckon - And surely the epic of all epics is just around the corner, close to the edge and down by a river....
Maybe even a spruced up and lengthened version of "Close" - The Jordan Rudess version of Tarkus (Steve Wilson vocals) is far better than the original in my opinion...

M27Barney wrote: ^ As You know - I don't really listen to anything other than Symphonic/Neo prog and progressive metal....Plenty to go at yet I reckon - And surely the epic of all epics is just around the corner, close to the edge and down by a river.... Maybe even a spruced up and lengthened version of "Close" - The Jordan Rudess version of Tarkus (Steve Wilson vocals) is far better than the original in my opinion...

What I will say is I heard Black As The Sky from the new TA album this morning, it's on the latest prog mag sampler and I'm impressed, it's a great song.  Nice vocals from almost all the band at one point or another (!) and awesome drumming from Portnoy.  Plus Rob, you'll love this - synths a plenty, it will definitely get a thumbs up from you I reckon.

Tom, I actually saw Snow Patrol live a few years back.  It was just after they'd hit the big time but they played all their edgier heavier earlier stuff which shocked most of the crowd who had come expecting Chasing Cars pretty much on loop for the full show, much to my amusement.

I've read over half a dozen online reviews of Kaleidoscope in the last few days (I have Transatlantic on "like" on Facebook  ), and every one says the exact opposite of the view expressed by Zumacraig.

infandous wrote: I am firmly in the "M&M is possibly the most dull, boring, and lifeless track TFK's have ever done" camp

Roj wrote: What I will say is I heard Black As The Sky from the new TA album this morning, it's on the latest prog mag sampler and I'm impressed, it's a great song.  Nice vocals from almost all the band at one point or another (!) and awesome drumming from Portnoy.  Plus Rob, you'll love this - synths a plenty, it will definitely get a thumbs up from you I reckon. Tom, I actually saw Snow Patrol live a few years back.  It was just after they'd hit the big time but they played all their edgier heavier earlier stuff which shocked most of the crowd who had come expecting Chasing Cars pretty much on loop for the full show, much to my amusement.

Nov wrote: infandous wrote: I am firmly in the "M&M is possibly the most dull, boring, and lifeless track TFK's have ever done" camp   Well, I played Monsters & Men very loudly last night just to reassure myself that I was right and you were wrong and........I was right!!  Shivers up the spine literally the whole way through and every note of it is perfect to my ears. I would actually say that it is now elevated to being a top three Flower Kings track. Isn't it amazing that we can both love this band but have polar opposite views on one of their best tracks

Well, I put that track on as well, thinking I might be wrong. My attention wandered after a couple minutes and I had difficulty focusing my attention on it for more than a half minute at a time, as nothing grabbed my attention let alone caused "shivers" (which has been the case since I first heard it in 2006).  So I was right and you were wrong, it turns out


Edited by infandous - January 23 2014 at 10:53

Roj wrote: Contrary to the above I do like quite a few off the bonus disc of Desolation Rose.  I won't even bore you all to death again raving about Interstellar Visitations, suffice to say it's my favourite off the whole album. I'm very much in agreement with the consensus here, Banks and DR are both very good albums and have great moments but great albums they are not, and the same goes for TSONE.  For some strange reason my mp3 player has loaded both discs as one album, a mish-mash of both or should I say one loooooong album.  Being a technophobe I have no idea how to remedy this and I have to say there's quite a few off the bonus disc I really like. Truth be told I've been really struggling with prog lately, nothing much new has bowled me over for quite a while.  Somewhat worried, over the weekend I thought I'd put things to the test and put on the headphones, lay back and listened to Garden of Dreams as it should be heard, eyes closed, darkened room etc and see how that went down.  No need to worry, those spine tingling moments (which as Nov rightly said appear to be missing off the last few releases) are all over this one, this is a true masterpiece.  Don't think we can expect anything of this quality again I suppose.

Yeah, I agree with almost all of this.  TSoNE, for whatever reason, has really worked for me since re-listening to it a year or so ago when I was trying to understand why Banks did nothing for me.  Like I said, TSoNE just seems to have everything I love about TFK's and prog in general, and nothing I don't.  I can't say the same for the last two FK albums.

As you say, symphonic and neo prog in general have gotten far too formulaic for me I think.  That didn't used to be an issue for me, as I thought I'd never get enough of the symphonic prog approach.  I guess I was wrong, and I seem to have reached saturation point.  Time to start branching out more, I guess.  Though I agree that the older stuff still sounds great to me.

I just had a look on Youtube in case someone had uploaded any tracks from Kaleidoscope and I found a few. They will most likely be removed soon as I'm sure the band haven't approved them, so anyone who's interested - be quick.

I suppose that we shall all be in a position to rate the TA shortly! I can't bring myself to sneak preview on the web - I like the tradition (when you got the new vinyl in it's gate-fold sleeve) of looking at the CD, the artwork - and gloating over it -then you give it a spin...and you hope that it's a winner and not a waste of money...