Flower Kings Appreciation Thread

Roland113 wrote: Ok, here's a new game for you all, there are eleven studio releases under "The Flower Kings" umbrella (I include "The Flower King").  I'm interested in how you would divide 'points' up among the releases.  Everyone has 25 points that can be distributed among the 11 albums in any way that you want, yes, you can give all twenty five points to "Adam and Eve" if you want, yes, you can give two points to every album if you'd like and not award the last three points, the choice is yours.   I'll tabulate the results next week, just post your list in here.  Go!   (and yes, we'll now be able to give a definitive answer to 'what is the group's favorite FK album and look at the bright side, we'll be able to do this again in a few months)

darkshade wrote: Speaking of "The Flower King", sooner or later, I'm going to get around to checking out the "other 2" Roine solo albums, "Hydrophonia" and "Wallstreet Voodoo" How are they? I'm particularly interested in checking out Wallstreet Voodoo because of the lineup with Neal sharing vocal duties with Roine. I'll get them both eventually, but which one is better?

Biff Tannen wrote: darkshade wrote: Speaking of "The Flower King", sooner or later, I'm going to get around to checking out the "other 2" Roine solo albums, "Hydrophonia" and "Wallstreet Voodoo" How are they? I'm particularly interested in checking out Wallstreet Voodoo because of the lineup with Neal sharing vocal duties with Roine. I'll get them both eventually, but which one is better? Both are good, but fairly different.  Hydrophonia is all instrumental, and has some great individual songs (Little Cottage by the Sea is absolutely gorgeous), while Wall Street Voodoo is very bluesy and not really proggy at all.  Neither is as good as The Flower King, but both are worth getting if you are a Roine Stolt fan. :)

Roland113 wrote: Biff Tannen wrote: darkshade wrote: Speaking of "The Flower King", sooner or later, I'm going to get around to checking out the "other 2" Roine solo albums, "Hydrophonia" and "Wallstreet Voodoo" How are they? I'm particularly interested in checking out Wallstreet Voodoo because of the lineup with Neal sharing vocal duties with Roine. I'll get them both eventually, but which one is better? Both are good, but fairly different.  Hydrophonia is all instrumental, and has some great individual songs (Little Cottage by the Sea is absolutely gorgeous), while Wall Street Voodoo is very bluesy and not really proggy at all.  Neither is as good as The Flower King, but both are worth getting if you are a Roine Stolt fan. :) Yeah, Biff kind of hit the nail on the head here.  The only thing that I'll add here is that while "Wall Street Voodoo" is certainly not prog, I absolutely love it though I really enjoy blues.  I have both Hydro and Wall Street, Wall Stree gets a regular playing, Hydro does not.

Yeah, same agree with Tom.  Hyrdo is interesting in that Roine plays everything except drums (by Salazar).  It has some good stuff, but I don't really think it has Roine's best guitar work.  It's one of those that I forget what it sounds like almost immediately after it's over, and I've heard the thing dozens of times.  Still enjoyable while it's playing and required for any die hard Roine fan.

Just so you know, the vocals on Wallstreet are mostly Roine.  The songs Neal sings on all have a Beatles vibe and are more pop sounding (like 60's type pop though I guess).  All the bluesy singing is Roine.  My only issue with  the album is that I feel like on a lot of the songs, the lyrics are kind of plastered over the top and don't really fit very well into the music.  Just my impression, since it's a very wordy album.  I think they are great lyrics though, just a bit too much of them for the type of music.  Doesn't stop me from enjoying it a lot though.  Roine has some killer guitar tones on that album, way more varied than any Flower Kings album in that regard.

darkshade wrote: Just finished up Retropolis. While it's a great album, I feel it's not as good as the albums preceding it and following it. I don't feel much of a connection to it as I do just about any other TFK album. The end of the album is one of the most glorious moments in their discography, however. I'm sure my opinion will change in time, as it always does with Flower Kings and other related bands; but right now, I put Retropolis in my bottom 2 along with The Rainmaker...

Sacrilege!!!! 

I guess I'm mostly alone in having that as a favorite album.  It is mostly a sentimental favorite for me, since it's the first I heard by the band and blew me away from the first song.  But it just has everything I love about prog in a fairly concise package (it's the shortest Flower Kings album).  Give it more time, as it's loaded with great stuff.





Edited by infandous - April 20 2012 at 14:21

I have just given UTF a partial spin. The opening epic is good but nowhere as good as all the earlier epics and I like the Devils playground - but it's spoilt by that god-awful saxophone solo...I am getting a lot more anti-sax (I said SAX) as I get older....I much prefer all other wind instruments over the god-awful saxophone......I used to be more tolerant of it - but now I find it just grates.....

I didn't give The Flower Kings any points because it isn't a TFK album, and I didn't give The Rainmaker or The Sum of No Evil any because they are, IMO, their two least best records, and I wanted to used my points for the best stuff. 

Don't get me wrong, I really like The Black Forest, but next to Paradox Hotel and Unfold the Future, not a chance, I'd put The Black Forest above Adam and Eve but below The Sum of No Evil.

darkshade wrote: I know many of you have been following my survivors for Yes and Dream Theater, and others who are doing Opeth, Porcupine Tree, Mars Volta, etc. Would you guys be up for a Flower Kings Survivor? Or at least a Transatlantic one?