Flower Kings Appreciation Thread

Yeah, no doubt we aren't going to agree, though it sounds like we like at least some of the same FK epics most of all (Devil's Playground, Stardust We Are, I Am The Sun).  I do agree about that final section of Life In Motion......I like the last part, but it seems like Roine certainly could have done a better job of incorporating it than just stopping the song and tacking it on the end like that.  That's one of the reasons I think Driver's Seat was a missed opportunity......it starts pretty strong, then peters out and pretty much stops before continuing in a less enjoyable way.

I also realize that my ambivalence to Banks is not shared by most on this list.  I just find it lacking in nearly everything I love about the band.  Desolation Rose, while decidedly NOT better than Sum is still a much better album than Banks and is rising up my list.......at least over Banks, Rainmaker and Adam & Eve if nothing else.  Sometimes I think the bonus CD is better than the main one, but other times I think they are both quite good.


Edited by infandous - March 04 2014 at 15:19

geekfreak, we are not shy with our opinions here   We are open to discussing all things FK and prog in general, so you will see the positive and the negative.  None of us would be here if we didn't love the the Flower Kings, so my negative comments, at least, should be taken with that in mind.  Even these songs that I'm complaining about are not "bad" songs by any means.  They just don't appeal to me for some reason.  Especially with the Flower Kings, music is not good or bad, it's just music, and it's just a matter of whether it appeals to me or not.

I've been listening to this band since 1999, so it doesn't surprise me that I'm finding I don't love everything they do unconditionally.  There is nothing wrong with that.  The Flower Kings are not my wife, or child, or mother or father   I feel no obligation to adore everything they do.  So we talk about it all there.  However, this is a band that has created some (maybe even most) of my favorite music of the past 15 years, so always take my comments with that in mind.  It's all good

This band has been the best for the last 20 years! Consistently producing marvellous (and long) symphonic prog. Mind you they do have a few "clunker" tracks in their large portfolio. Mind You name a band (who have produced three or more releases) that doesn't have MORE clunkers !

Roj wrote: Biff Tannen wrote: Despite the stop in the middle, I still dig Driver's Seat a lot.  I like the way all three singers are utilized in that one.  I do agree that the first half is much stronger than the second half, though, just like I think the second half of Love Supreme is much stronger than the first half.  But the bonus disc of Desolation Rose is definitely mostly awesome; every instrumental there slays.  Agree with all of that Biff .  Driver's Seat is brilliant in my opinion and ditto the second half of Love Supreme. That bonus disc is superb too.  My MP3 player has somehow set the album up in the strange order of Disc 1 Track 1 followed by Disc 2 Track 1 then Disc 1 Track 2 then Disc 2 Track 2 etc etc.  When I listened to the whole thing that way  for the first time (probably only the third time I listened to the album ever I noticed that it was the bonus disc tracks that were more appealing. I also think Interstellar Visitations is the best track from either disc of DR.  It's also found it's way into my top 10 of TFK songs of all time.  I find that this and several others off the bonus disc remind me greatly of the style, mood and atmosphere of the likes of the debut and Retropolis, the instrumentals that they generally don't do nowadays.

I pretty much agree with you both about DR.  Not so much Driver's Seat and Love Supreme, but that's just how personal taste is I guess.  The bonus CD is at least as good as the main CD for sure, and Interstellar Visitations is probably the best song out of both CD's.

I agree with Biff on one thing..........Froberg's voice has become less appealing to me as the years go by.  Not sure if that's just him getting older or what, but I find it more and more grating with each new album.  I thought he was brilliant on all the early albums, and only started noticing that I didn't like it as much when I was listening to the Tour Kaputt live album (which he mostly sounds good on.......just the first track he seems "off").  On Banks and DR though, he sounds more grating on my ears than I remember him sounding in the past.  Though maybe Biff is right and it's just weaker melodies, not sure.

I can't figure out if it really is Froberg's voice or just the melodies being weaker.  Probably a little of both.  I remember hearing the beginning of the song Desolation Rose and being so excited for it, as those short piano-driven songs are always so good (Jealousy, Solitary Shell, etc.), and then the vocals came in and was like, oh sh*t, Froberg sings it. 

Biff Tannen wrote: Despite the stop in the middle, I still dig Driver's Seat a lot.  I like the way all three singers are utilized in that one.  I do agree that the first half is much stronger than the second half, though, just like I think the second half of Love Supreme is much stronger than the first half.

I am torn on my listening tonight while the Mrs watches the "bubblegum for the mind" soaps ("Coronation Street" & "Emmerdale", to inform the peoples across the pond) - I have so much to choose from (twas never the same in the late seventies, when the choice of top notch symphonic prog was much more limited!) - I feel that Sum of No evil will be on my spin list...I am torn between the dial Emma of wanting to give some other track in my collection the chance to rise above the average, and play a known favourite!
Decisions - Maybe I should be a prog Dice-man and let the dice decide!

zumacraig wrote: @biff, i'm with on most of that.  Unfold is quite long.  i see what the band was trying to do, but Truth just doesn't blow me away like it does others on this thread.  same with the rest of the album.  good point about black and white.  i do love the entire I Am The Sun, but the rest of that album doesn't do it for me except Rumblefishtwist.  I think the reason I like the last three albums so much is that there isn't this deluge of music.  it's 5 songs and then the bonus disk.  that's what i prefer.  in that regard, Banks is a perfect album.

I guess I'm just not a "less is more" kind of person   I don't necessarily have anything against the two recent albums being a more manageable length, especially because it takes away one of the major criticisms I've heard of the band over the years, but if you took the best 50-60 minutes of Stardust We Are, Flower Power, Space Revolver, or Unfold the new ones would pale substantially in comparison.  I'm guess we could all agree on that, more or less.  Of course, my feelings about Banks are well known.  I think it COULD have been a perfect album, as it is laid out very well and the idea of them just sticking with the absolute best material to make a 50 minute album has always appealed to me.  I just don't hear it on Banks though.  As far as Numbers being cohesive, I suppose I can't argue that........but it also makes it pretty dull and lifeless for me (except for that one climactic part in the second half).  Just personal taste I guess.

I agree about Unfold, but when I finally absorbed it after a year or so, I couldn't help but be amazed by what they'd created.  I don't love every track on that album, but what I do love is some of their best material.......I prefer Devil's Playground to The Truth though, so I think we aren't too far apart there (though I consider the Truth to be one of their best epics anyway.....I love it).  So yeah, Banks is not a perfect album for me, and while I prefer DR to it, that is not a perfect album either.  Both just pale when compared to their best work, IMO.

As an example, just yesterday Theme For A Hero came on my MP3 player..........and I realized that there is just nothing like that on any of the albums since the comeback......really not since Paradox Hotel.  As much as I like the instrumentals on the bonus CD of DR (especially Interstellar Visitation), they just don't come close to the brilliance of Theme For A Hero, of you ask me.

I think it has a lot to do with the fact that Roine is giving the rest of the band more input (or, rather, they are offering more as he has always said he's open to their input, they just never gave him much in the past, with the obvious exception of Tomas).  There are good and not so good aspects to this, and I guess for me it leans towards the not so good.  But I still like something on every album and there is really nothing I would ever call "bad" on any of them.

Wow, that was a lot.  Sorry........I'm not trying to dominate the thread or anything, I just have always seem to have a lot to say about this band

Just completed my listening for tonight (I promised the Mrs that I would spend some time with her - probably watching Jonathon Creek - which I don't mind). Sum of No Evil - I thought it was very, very good - not a weak track on it! That's elevated that for sure! - Then I listened to the two epics from A&E - again very good - and both with killer guitar parts - which I'd forgotten about.
However, then I played.....Stardust we are - and I got the hairs on the back of my neck and the eyes filling up as the music reaches and stimulates the subroutines that the others didn't...
So I go with
Garden of Dreams / Stardust we are (I can't separate those at the moment)
2. I am the Sun
3. Monsters & Men (The best ending of nearly any prog track you would care to list!)
Then the rest in no particular order - but hey those tracks are better than 95% of other symphonic prog...