“We believe in the light, we believe in love, every precious, little thing.

We believe you can still surrender; you can serve the Flower King.”

It’s there, in those two lines and the music that captures them that you can see the whole of The Flower Kings spring to life. But it’s not a Flower Kings album, it’s from the 1994 solo album from Roine Stolt titled The Flower King. There were certainly albums before this one: coming to prominence as a 17-year old guitar phenom with the Swedish progressive unit Kaipa in the mid 70s; a quick pair of albums as Fantasia (or Roine Stolt’s Fantasia); even two solo albums before the future congeals in this fantastic slab of progressive rock. So before jumping into the band proper, I thought it only fitting – especially since I was able to grab one of the limited edition first vinyl pressing of the album (it was only CD and digital before this year) – that we talk about the ür Flower Kings if I may borrow liberally from Harold Bloom. Whether you consider it part of the discography or not it’s a killer album, so let’s dig in.

Continue reading “Roine Stolt: The Flower King (1994)”