Consuming the Tangible

You’re Roine Stolt, and you’ve just released your most ambitious project to date: a double album with a 25-minute closing title track. The album gets you more into the spotlight, with many considering it the pinnacle of the neo-prog movement that’s happening in the 90s. Where do you go from there? You double down on everything, including the epic, a sprawling prog odyssey an hour in length and broken into 18 sections. The Flower Kings have done a lot of things, but for my money nothing as epic – or accomplished – as Flower Power, the band’s fourth studio album and clocking in at over 140 minutes their second longest album (Unfold the Future beats it by a mere 18 seconds). There’s a lot to digest so let’s just get to it.

Subtitled A Journey to the Hidden Corners of Your Mind, the whole band returns and instead of waiting for the end stick the 60-minute epic “Garden of Dreams” right up front. As the lovely, pastoral opening “Dawn” fades away into the quick instrumental “Simple Song” where the main melodic theme is reinforced, it’s great to see Bodin taking more creative directions with Stolt – he’s credited as a co-writer on 14 of the 18 parts of “Garden of Dreams” and has a credit on two of the remaining tracks. The whole band gets into the writing, with both Jaime Salazar and even Hasse Fröberg contributing songs to the album. Far from diluting the Flower King formula, it expands the scope of Flower Power in ways that strengthen the overall trajectory of the album.

But getting back to “Garden of Dreams” the first side of the vinyl contains the first seven sections, and despite being less heavy than the opening to Stardust We Are it feels just as powerful, with the band on “All You Can Save” getting downright Beatle-esque in its use of instrumentation and some of the harmonic ideas. I love the dip to a more minor feel on the track’s downturned moments. Stolt’s guitar sounds gigantic. The rock picks up and gets pretty Zappa-fied on “Attack of the Monster Briefcase” and between Bodin’s keyboard work and the snap of Salazar’s drums it’s an early highlight. Like every Flower Kings album so far, the production is absolutely immaculate, more credit to producer Don Azzaro who’s produced all the record to this point. The Salazar/Bodin train continues on the manic “Mr. Hope Goes to Wall Street” – a solo Bodin composition, and swoops down to a more meditative longing on the vocal track “Did I Tell You?”

Fröberg takes the lead vocal on the orchestral, swooping title track before the song moves into a nasty funk rock swing and Stolt’s takes the vocal back for “Don’t Let the D’Evil In”. Super catchy chorus, taking a standard anthemic rock approach when the rest of the track is nothing a typical rock band at the end of the century would do. Sweet wah pedal in the guitar parts. The vocal syncopation on “Love Is The Word” is a delight, and listening back as I write this I feel utterly justified in naming this my favorite Flower Kings album – so fart there’s not a single thing I’d cut from this. Stolt sounds phenomenal vocally on “There’s No Such Night” and the orchestral flourishes are back and this is how I want my prog ballads. That brings us to the two instrumental tracks, “The Mean Machine” and “Dungeon of the Deep” acting as a kind of spacey interlude before returning to vocals with “Indian Summer” whose lyrics betray the more ominous nature of the music.

Regardless of what the remastered vinyl says, “Sunny Lane” actually opens Side 3 (not closes Side 2). That small misprint aside, the whole of “Garden of Dreams” continues to impress, with this instrumental having more of the fun Bodin-isms on keyboards and Stolt injecting his Zappa love directly into the main melody. It segues beautifully with some piano into the “Gardens Revisited” section, and I’m only now seeing how the vinyl expected switched up the sequencing without losing any of the power of the suite. If this isn’t how it was meant to be a heard, it sure sounds like it was. That leaves only the brief interlude “Shadowland” before the final track in the suite, appropriately titled “The Final Deal.” Sung by Stolt, it’s a fitting, majestic closer to the song cycle. To flesh out the side, Stolt adds three tracks: “Captain Capstan” and “Ikea By Night” are very short interludes that preface the eight minute “Astral Dog” which very much seems like a Zappa instrumental song in Flower Kings clothing. I’m 100% okay with this, and it doesn’t at all detract from the modern prog epic that came before it. Again, Stolt’s guitar tone and playing are exquisite and he hits though low notes just like Frank would have.

But now that the epic is over and done with, and we’re over an hour into Flower Power, where does that leave the remaining standalone songs?

The standout “Deaf, Numb & Blind” opens Side 4, which does some more shuffling of the sequence by adding the bonus track “End of the Century” which is just a short paint piece by Bodin before getting to “Stupid Girl” to close out the side. “Deaf, Numb & Blind” has some of the exotic flair heard on the earlier albums, and we also finally get some real standout bass from Michael Stolt. At 11 minutes it’s another mini-epic, and each remaining side contains one bound by smaller songs. They also, sadly, contain some tracks that feel less essential, starting with “Stupid Girl” and its very pop-flavored prog. “Corruption” fares much better, having a driving riff propel the rocking track forward. Those with the new vinyl remaster will have to do without “Hudson River Siren’s Call” and “Afterlife” although those are both on the accompanying CDs.

Of the remaining tracks, it’s worth noting “Magic Pie” which is the Hasse Fröberg penned song, and it’s lovely, taking some of that sugary pop and crafting it into something you’d hear everywhere on 80s FM pop. His voice is just sublime, and the song is an indicator of where he’d go with his own project, the Hasse Fröberg & Musical Companion. Finally there’s “Calling Home,” another 11-minute epic that takes all the different styles present throughout Flower Power and nicely integrates them into one song. It’s a more than fitting closer to the album, and if I’m being honest, I think having now gotten the re-sequenced vinyl under my belt I prefer it to the original track order.

Not sure if there’s a better recommendation than that, so we’ll close this one out and return in a bit with a new century, a new millennium, and a Space Revolver to check out.