THE SUM OF NO EVIL

When this album came out earlier this year it was followed by much praise and worship. I read some reviews, checked out some reviews on their other albums and decided if had the chance I'd pick it up. That opportunity happened a couple weeks ago when I found this album staring at me from from the store shelves. Excited, I bought the album hastily and threw it into the cd player. At first listen I was blown away, I thought I'd discovered the next CTTE.

However, a few listens later and that feeling has more than worn off. This happened when I realized a couple things. First, this is not a very original album. Every sound and atmosphere has been used before by some other band, and better. The soundscapes owe a lot to the like of Yes or Dream Theater, which really isn't bad. But this doesn't just sound like the influences, it IS the influences. They've basically just taken some music that Yes could have recorded and added some (poor) vocals over top of it. Second, The songs are (and this is very unlike me to say) TOO LONG. There's not nearly enough ideas here to evolve a song such as JUST ONE MORE TIME or LOVE IS THE ONLY ANSWER. The latter of which (the 24-minute "epic") turns out sounding like a very very long short song. Now, granted, these songs do have some very good speed changes and instrumentalism, but it's often misplaced or not developed well enough.

This is not to say the album is bad, after all I did give it a "good" rating, 3 stars. While they may not do very original material, what they do, they do well. The music is solid, the playing is tight, and there is a lot of genuinely good music to be had on here. Often on this album the band is at their best when they're acting strange, making quirky music. FLIGHT 999 BRIMSTONE AIR and THE SUM F NO REASON are both very good songs and are standouts on the album. What they should have done is stuck primarily with this kind of music and made the Yes-esque music the lesser part.

Now... I must attack the vocals. As stated before, one of the only things that sets this band apart from what theyre trying to copy is the vocals. While sometimes well delivered, many other times the vocals sound WAY too strange. This is likely because the band is Swedish, and kudos for being multilingual (me being a good ol' English canadian only capable of speaking one language), but shouldn't the producer have said "try that take again, your voice did something weird there". However, I do respect them for making the most of what they have.

Okie-dokie, conclusion time. While this is likely the best place to get introduced to this band I wouldn't really recommend it. It's definately some solid Symphonic-Prog that's a very enjoyable listen, but if you're looking for something very fresh and new sounding while still prog this is definately not the album for you. 3 stars, good album, definately no masterpiece, but good.

Share this THE FLOWER KINGS review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to Queen By-Tor
• Report this review (#154425)
• Buy THE FLOWER KINGS music online with PA partners
• Show all THE FLOWER KINGS MP3/Stream
• Go to THE FLOWER KINGS page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to The Sum of No Evil page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for THE FLOWER KINGS related discussions