Issue 2023-069

Duo Review

The Flower Kings — Look At You Now

7

Armin Rößler

If proof were needed, The Flower Kings provided it themselves on their tour in May 2023. There wasn't a single song on the setlist that had been released later than 2006, and with just nine songs, that filled the evening wonderfully. The long-track portion was appropriately high. That song selection, which was limited to the albums Back In The World Of Adventures (1995), Retropolis (1996), Stardust We are (1997) and Paradox Hotel (2006), didn't include a single failure, and lined-up highlight after highlight.

It proved to me that in their heyday TFK made a lot of great records with many outstanding songs. But unfortunately it also reminded me that the band, after the forced breaks prescribed by mastermind Roine Stolt, have been unable to regain their earlier highs. The albums are good, but not very good. The songs are worth listening to, but just without the swings to the top. The Flower Kings delivered their last masterpiece with Unfold The Future in 2002. That was quite a long time ago.

This new disc doesn't change anything. It fits exactly into the pattern of its predecessors, Waiting For Miracles (2019), Islands (2020) and By Royal Degree (2022). There is the small difference that this time there's no double album (or triple LP) delivered. But even a single CD from TFK offers a stately 68 minutes playing time.

It is another very nice album, which is a pleasure to listen to. It furthermore scores with great artwork by Joey Tessier. But it does not deliver another classic for a best-of-setlist in 20 years time. This may be complaining on a high level, but still clouds the joy of the music. At least a little bit. However, other bands would be happy to be able to deliver on such a consistently high level. It's all a question of perspective, isn't it?

Beginner's Eyes, a piece that Roine Stolt says he composed back in the nineties, but has only now put the finishing touches to, opens the album with sounds that are expected, familiar, but also dearly loved. If you need the comparison, The Flower Kings have a sound based in the 70s bands like Genesis, Camel or Kaipa, the Swedish prog band in which the then just 17 years young Roine Stolt earned his first spurs from 1975 onward.

But that's not all. Over and over again, a jazzy note is noticeable, which gives The Flower Kings a good push of independence. And there is the tendency towards smooth melodies, which makes you think of the more positive sides of the Beatles, next to a sympathetic hippie note that transports love, peace and happiness.

This is perhaps something on which to fault the band. It transports a lot of euphony, forgetting the rough edges that are sometimes simply necessary. In The Light in your Eyes there is this moment, in which Hasse Fröberg, who shares the lead vocals with Roine Stolt (and also plays the guitar live, but does not do so on this album), finally unpacks his somewhat scratchy rock voice. While much of the album flows gently, so that one listens with pleasure without being completely gripped. Here, the opposite is the case, and makes it an album highlight. Also credit to the supporting voice of Jannica Lund, which comes a little more to the fore and gives the music a new note. As later does the anthemic Day For Peace, in which Marjana Semkina (iamthemorning) has a highly impressive guest appearance.

The disc presents some shorter songs with a length between three and seven minutes. Only the title track is the exception with twelve minutes. There are eleven Roine Stolt compositions (only in the chamber music-like instrumental Dr. Ribedeaux is drummer Mirko DeMaio named as co-author). There are two songs (Mother Earth and Father Sky), which were composed and texted by Roine's brother Michael Stolt (bass, vocals, keyboards, guitar) and the aforementioned Jannica Lund, but these fit into the overall context without a break.

On the whole this is a good album, but unfortunately not a new late-career masterpiece.