FLOWER POWER

As they keep putting out important (the understatement of the century , let alone the millenium) quantities of music (the previous and following will be double CD also) , one wonders what the point is to putting one hour numbers going in all direction (especially when this goes nowhere),mindless soloing and doubtful concept .

I rented out this album , and to my great distress was simply unable to go through the entirity of it as almost every single note appears to be either redundant or lifted from a classic album.

As with most of TFK albums, this is for people who have yet to built discernement . Youger progheards will likely not agree with me, but once you have heard thousands of prog albums and put them in the historical perspective, you should see this relatively easily.

Roine Stolt's solo album "The Flower King" in 1994 was a fresh breath of air. It was simply the best he had done since KAIPA, and a milestone in Swedish progressive rock. The album's title became the name for a new band called The FLOWER POWER, who would come to be one of the leading names in Progressive rock, both in Sweden and in the whole world. The band and the band members have since then released albums in a faster tempo than any other bands I know about. "Workaholics" would be a proper name for them. And if I tell you that every album contains high-quality progressive rock, that two of the albums are double-CDs, and that none of the albums would get a lower rating than 4 out of 5, then you can imagine that they have to be musical geniuses. The new album "Flower Power": Then what about the new double-album, does it live up to the expectations? I have to say YES! The FLOWER KINGS have made it again. Disc 1 contains a one hour long epic masterpiece called "Garden Of Dreams". It's divided into 18 shorter tracks but has got a constant flow in the music. If you've never heard The FLOWER KINGS before I can tell you that they are playing 70's influenced symphonic progressive rock with some jazz influences here and there. The music is often instrumental, or lyrical with long instrumental passages and many mood and tempo changes. Their music is a mix between GENESIS, KING CRIMSON, PINK FLOYD and YES. All of the musicians in FLOWER KINGS are very skilled. Roine Stolt is one of the top guitarists in the whole progressive world, and maybe THE best from Sweden. Roine has got a very unique sound and way of playing. Tomas Bodin is a master on the keyboards. Tomas Bodin often use many different keyboard instruments such as analogue synthesisers, Church Organ, Grand Piano, Hammond, Mellotron and Wurlitzer piano. Hasse Bruniusson is a living legend as he was a member of SAMLA MAMMAS MANNA, which was one of the leading Swedish progressive bands back in the 70's. The drummer Jaime Salazar is a rock behind his drums. He can play both tight and static, and in the next second get loose on the drums like a madman. One thing I like with The FLOWER KINGS is their positive lyrics. While many bands only see the bad things in life, like war, the pollution of the air etc., The FLOWER KINGS write about love, peace and understanding. I'm not saying that you should neglect all the bad things in the world, I only believe that if the mankind had the same way of seeing things as The FLOWER KINGS, there wouldn't be any problems. In some ways their messages are almost religious. Another one of The FLOWER KINGS trademarks is the strong melodies. The highlights are "The Final Deal", "Astral Dog", the eleven minute long "Deaf, Numb And Blind" and "Painter". The weakest tracks are "Stupid Girl" and "Psycedelic Postcard". - SUMMARY: I give this album a four star rating (out of 5). This is because I have judged it compared to the other FLOWER KINGS releases, and this album isn't as good as the previous "Stardust We Are" from 1997, but almost. Else I would've given it a five star rating. I advice you to buy this double CD as well as all the other The FLOWER KINGS releases. Good stuff all of them! An excellent album from one of Sweden's premier bands that is highly recommended!

Brilliant release confirming the 90's kings of Prog! "Flower Power" is a 2 CD set of epic proportions. CD1 basically runs as 1 long track which contains some of The FLOWER KINGS' most diverse and powerful pieces ever recorded! Epic track,"Garden Of Dreams" runs 59Mins in length and builds in emotion and intensity until the most beautiful, symphonic climax in unleashed upon the listener. The final 10 mins of the track contains in my opinion the FLOWER KINGS's highest moment ever recorded. This long track moves so cleverly in atmospheres, moods and emotions that the listener will not be tired throughout at all (a real trick to pull off for such a long track!). "Flower Power" contains the classic FLOWER KINGS lineup (Bodin, Stolt, Salazar...) who sound even better than ever!. There is no question about Roine's guitar talents and "Flower Power" gives him loads of room to play his guts-out which he does with that unmistakeable Stolt - emotion. CD2 builds nicely off the 1st CD in many ways and compliments the overall theme. "Flower Power" contains lots of real FLOWER KINGS classic progressive rock moments which will please all prog heads out there in prog land. Recommended with the highest regard!

Well it's a prolix and pretentious album, characterized also by surprising symphonic breaks through, but it is discontinuous. The best stuff here is comparable to that one of my preferred albums by F.K., that is "Retropolis" - despite of its defects - and also "Stardust We Are". It is interesting but not essential, even though I confirm that the best stuff here (a few parts) is anyway recommended!

This is one of my alltime favourite discs. Its perhaps no. 1 on my list. Why? Because it contains some of the most beautiful music Ive ever heard. Listening to Tracks 14-18 from disc 1, is like feeling you are ascending into heaven, into eternity. Thats what it makes me feel. In fact, I put on that disc only on special ocasions, so it wont worn out: its almost sacred to me. Disc 2, is incosistent because it is diverse. Not that is bad, but it contains some stuff that is not exactly very prog. Although it all ends up growing on you with time. Tracks 1, 3, 5 and 10 are the best from that disc. If you are into hearing some beautiful, positive,melodic, and inteligent prog, try this one, you cant be dissapointed!

Brilliant Musicianship like ever but i have to say that this album is a mess, why 18 pieces of 1 song?, there's also a 5 sec song!! and it have a name and is written by someone!! how can this be?? i just can't find out if it is a a whole concept album or not....when Garden of Dream ends its like it doesn't really end, it just continues through Captain Capstan. CD 2 is a little bit more "regular" but some songs are still mixed with others and can't say if it is thr "second part" of CD 1. This album could really drive anybody mad, but after all, it has very good "pieces".

this is a masterpiece of an album, and my reigning favourite of all TFK's releases. disc one is very inspirational, with short songs that segue to the next, each is a gem in its own right. The 2nd disc is more standard TFK, with songs averaging about 8min, and keeping to the main theme of the album. It took me awhile to get into this album, the rainmaker, space revolver and others are more of an easy listen, and sticks alot quicker, but i find that after a while i always come back to flower power. i think what sets this album apart from the others is the amount of collaboration between Roine and the rest of the group, Tomas Bodin in particular. Roine is the sole writer of most their other albums, but on flower power, when he teams up with Tomas, they come out with some killer tracks.

I've been listening to this one for a few years now, so I think I can make this judgement: This album contains some really wonderful, mind-blowing music. It is also deeply flawed. The band needs to learn to edit itself. It seems that just about every idea gets thrown in there whether it is good or not. This is true of almost all of their albums, but it's particularly out of control on this one. The hour-long "Garden of Dreams" is almost all good stuff! The "Peace is the Word section is fantastic. but then they tack on those pointless 55 second and 5 second (songs?!) onto the end to fill the disc up. The fact that they have titles and composition credits doesn't make them work. Disc 2 is almost all throwaway with a few exceptions, particularly the first song "Deaf Numb and Blind", which may be worth the price of the whole package. I really love this band, I just wish they would focus a little harder. Most albums are inconsistent, with brilliant music interspersed with a lot of dubious ideas. It seemed like they had a preconceived plan to produce a sprawling double disc, Roine brought some great compositions to the table, and then they just filled up the rest of the discs with whatever.

"Flowerpower"'s subtitle --"A Journey To The Hidden Corners Of Your Mind"-- is no idle boast: this 2-disc, 141-minute- long album is a towering, challenging, dazzlingly creative set in the grandest progressive rock tradition. The hour- long(!), 18-part album-opener "Garden Of Dreams" sets the tone, blending diverse early-'70s influences from Genesis to Renaissance to Frank Zappa and beyond; it is a brilliant, often psychedelic, always awesome artistic accomplishment, featuring sections like the gently swaying Pink Floydian balladry of "All You Can Save" and the fiery, hyperkinetic bursts of "Mr. Hope Goes To Wall Street." And the Flower Kings' artistry and diversity never wanes: other "Flowerpower" highlights include the deep, melodically engaging, and relatively accessible rock of "Stupid Girl," the moody, Joe Satriani-esque "Astral Dog," and the energetic, multi-textured mini-epic "Psychedelic Postcard." "Flowerpower" makes no concessions or apologies, and it is a major statement, well worth hearing for any prog fan.

While groups like ELP and KING CRIMSON continue to gain popularity without making any new music, they can continue their legacy based on what they have already accomplished, not what they are currently recording. The FLOWER KINGS however have been making their mark since the 90's and have been moving forward since their inception. They are only second to DREAM THEATER in popularity, and, in my estimation, right on their heels, poised to take their place. Musically they are more interesting and unlike any other prog-rock band active today.

Now that I am working my way backwards through their sizable catalog I have an opportunity to see how they have developed over the years. In 1999 they released this two disc set titled "Flower Power". It's not as strong as their best "Stardust We Are" but very close. Although the musical intensity, complexity, and sophistication are in place, the sound and production isn't quite as good. All the same its an awesome exploration of musical interpretations of their thought provoking colorful stories and characters- "Captain Capstan" and "Astral Dog" to name a few.

Mr. Flower King himself, Roine STOLT, once again leads the rest of his band mates to prog-rock utopia with his dazzling and clean guitar work. I really think that developmentally this group is light-years ahead of every one of their peers, and always has been. The brilliance and compositional range of "Garden of Dreams" on disc one offers a multi-tiered extravaganza comprised of twenty one tracks of the most virtuous prog-rock you will ever hear.

I can foresee more changes and musical surprises over the course of time with this group's proactive progressive evolutionary mindset. They are the real deal, and they're in it for the long haul. How many groups put out double albums loaded with strong material from start to finish like The FLOWER KINGS? And they do it on a regular basis. Look at the total times for each disc! They are phenomenal. Add this to your collection, for that matter pick up every single CD that you can find by this group. You will not be disappointed, I personally guarantee it.

*Note: I found an oddity with the listing of the tracks on Amazon.com and All Music Guide.com (which is consistently incorrect with track times); they list "Garden of Dreams" eighteen times as the same song and not the titles of each track. Please don't refer to these sites for the proper listing of songs on this CD.

As much as I love this album I cannot give it the complete 5 stars. There are some fantastic moments in the opening track " GARDEN OF DREAMS" but it seems disconnected and doesn't have the continuity an epic track should have. Nothing links the 18 sections together and when it closes it feels as if you've listened to 18 dufferent tracks. 18 well written and well performed tracks but seperate tracks nonetheless. I don't blame the band, how easy can it be to put together a song that's supposed to last close to an hour and tie it all together?

Basically, I do feel that this is an album that while it may not be essential to your prog collection, it is a must ahve if you like the FLOWER KINGS as I do. GARDEN OF DREAMS plays well as long as you understand the first 18 tracks are just that. The rest of the album showcases the band's considerable talent base, even on some of the lass popular songs like "Stupid Girl." and "Psychadelic Postcard" which happens to be one of my favorite.

After the double strike two years before with STARDUST WE ARE this was their next one, this time two CDs filled up with even 141 minutes of music.

The first CD is mainly consisting of the great one-hour suite GARDEN OF DREAMS. It comprises 18 single tracks, but listening to it, one really gets the impression that it's one magnum opus. There are wonderful melodies, great sonic textures and it's full of rhythm breaks and shifts. The performance of all musicians is brilliant as always. Of course it has some stronger and some weaker moments, but actually I could not name any outstanding one, I usually love to listen to it just on the whole whenever I've got one hour of free time. For example the moment when Don't Let The Devil In is coming in is one of the highlights of the suite. Although it's like been waken up cruelly from a very pleasant dream this piece is really set at the right place before the music would become too dreamy and possibly lose the attraction of the listener. Overall it's a very well composed long suite. Last track on this CD Astral Dog is an amazing jazz-fusion piece and very much ZAPPA-reminiscent featuring great guitar playing.

Second CD is starting rather weak I've got to say and this reminds me a bit to the last double album. Deaf, Numb & Blind is not a bad one, but they were doing already better long tracks, this one is a bit too shallow. Stupid Girl is a nice but rather pop-ish song in the beginning, but has a great guitar solo later on. The first one which is able to catch my attention is Corruption, a quite catchy rocking one in a reggae rhythm with nice keyboards. Power Of Kindness is a very contemplative and quiet organ instrumental by Tomas Bodin, quite nice and relaxing! Psychedelic Postcard starts with some distorted vocals, has a quite lush part in the middle and some rather YES- reminiscent harmonies with guitar and keyboards in the final part. It's one of those TFK- songs which develop to a quite interesting and versatile one after a rather weak beginning. A quite good one, but as well not really a highlight. Hudson River Sirens Call 1998 is a very psychedelic and strange instrumental and can't convince me at all. Magic Pie is a rather pop-ish and sob stuff like ballade sung by Hasse Froberg, it's working out a bit better with Roine Stolt's voice in the next one Painter. Calling Home is again not a real highlight and Afterlife is a reprise of the suite theme.

As a SUMMARY I've got to say the second CD is very weak and lacking absolutely some highlight, most of the songs are rather mediocre and leaves the impression that the album has been just "filled up" with some leftover material. First CD is excellent but I think this is not sufficient to rate the whole album higher than 3 stars. I would say overall FLOWER POWER is even a bit weaker than STARDUST WE ARE and the only really essential and excellent double album from them is UNFOLD THE FUTURE!

The Flower Kings never cease to amaze me. After their amazing Retropolis and Stardust We Are, there wasn't a conceivable way that The Flower Kings could top themselves. They did it with this. The opening track, the 60 minute Garden of Dreams, is easily one of the greatest Prog epics ever. Going through many different moods, tempos, and shifts in texture, there is nothing not to like about it. The musicianship from every member is incredible, especially Stolt and Bodin. Stolt truly is an underrated guitarist, playing many different styles on the entire album.

After the opener, the rest of the first CD is what I call filler. The instrumental Astral Dog is a great instrumental, but can get old rather quickly. The Flower Kings were always good at supplying an album with great material, then after the great material, there is always filler to "fill" the gaps. Sometimes it is not bad, sometimes it's mediocre. Regardless, this album is great. Other noteworthy tracks are Deaf, Numb, and Blind, which features superb playing by Stolt and Bodin. The rest of the 2nd album is great, the only filler tracks I don't like are Hudson River Sirens Call 1998 and Afterlife.

Overall, this album is a great effort by a great band. I really do enjoy this album immensely. The Flower Kings never cease to amaze me, and this is another reason why I cannot dislike them.

This is "Symphonissimo Grandioso Supremo"!! The ultilmate on melodic, harmonic, song- driven progressive rock can be found on this double CD. Just the one hour masterpiece Garden Of Dreams is worth the price. True there are some weaker songs too, but the album is just so majestic and grand that I cannot possibly give it anything less than 5. You can find everything here - heart-felt vocals, killer solos, humor, instrumental workouts that will make you sweat... Nothing more to add. Go get the album :)

Well, where do I begin on this total masterpiece? This was the first FK cd I bought, and it rather spoiled me for all the rest of their albums. This is a truly tremendous work, 2 discs, with superbly crafted, melodic and symphonic music that any devotee of the genre surely can't help but adore. What can I say? The first track, the mega- epic, 'Garden Of Dreams' lasts a couple of seconds under an hour! That is longer than most groups albums! And a wonderful piece it is too! Split into 18 segments that all fuse together nicely, it is diverse and coherent. It shifts between many moods; happy, moody, upbeat, atmospheric and other, more subtle ones. In parts there are deft Yes- like touches, in others, more straightforward rockier ones. Bodin's keyboards shine here, and show just what technical ability he in fact has. I won't even bother to review the individual segments, just take it from me, it has to be heard to be believed. Of course, there are various influences at work here, but they are all garnished with the classic FK touch. This track, on its own, is worth the price of the cd, and must rank as one of the greatest epics ever. Certainly one of the longest! Next is a funny little ditty, 'Captain Capstan', a small piece of enjoyable nonsense that conjures, for me, the image of a jolly Jack Tar dancing on a sailing boat. Just under a minute it lasts, and then comes an even shorter piece, the 5 second bridge called 'Ikea By Night', which is, in fact, simply a short drum roll that leads nicely into the last track on this disc, the Satriani inspired 'Astral Dog'. This is an 8 min piece that shows off just how good Stolt is on guitar. Heavy but melodic, it is a fine instrumental, not typical FK at all. So we end disc one, and if that was all there was, then it would rank as one of this band's best. But no! Now we turn to disc two. Here we have the, erm, 'shorter' tracks. Even though two of them are 11 mins long, and another is nearly 10! We start with the magnificent 'Deaf, Numb & Blind', which is an 11+ min rockier piece, with a wonderful change of melody and style in the middle, before ending as it began. Superb. Now we have one of my favourites, the classic 'Stupid Girl', which is a cross between U2 (at the start) and Simple Minds. Another very different song, again not typical FK. Then is the heavier keyboard and guitar led track, 'Corruption', which is, again, excellent, although, if I had to choose my least fave track on this album, I would probably name this, even though I do really like it! It's just that the rest is so bloody good! A nice Bodin instrumental, 'The Power Of Kindness' comes next, which is gentle and peaceful. Very nice. And that leads to...what is possibly my fave song on the whole two discs, which is no easy choice to make, believe me! 'Psycedelic Postcard' is just what the title implies. A psychedelic journey of nearly 10 mins, redolent with riotous humour and melody. Strange, almost helium inspired singing starts it off, before the music becomes wild and driving. The chorus is classic yes, Hasse Froberg sounding the spit of Jon Anderson here, and that is always a good thing for me. It's the sort of track you sit and listen to with a smile on your face, not easy for a pessimist like me! Next is the haunting 'Hudson River Sirens Call 1998' which is simply a beautiful instrumental. It is indeed, for me, evocative of a river at night and builds slowly before ending without ever taking off. Next? My God! The excellent 'Magic Pie' one of Mr Froberg's compositions. And a wonderful tune it is too, almost a romantic ballad, yet fitting in nicely with the diversity of the album. Then? 'Painter' stirs the senses with its slow, superb melody, and luscious multi-layered harmonies in the chorus. At the risk of repeating myself, brilliant! 'Calling Home' is the penultimate track, an 11 min epic with another superb melody, and some exceptional guitar work. Also an lovely yet subtle change of tempo near the end. And, finally, the instrumental wonder that is 'Afterlife'. A piece that brings part of 'Garden Of Dreams' back to you. (Remember that? The first track, heard hours ago?) It ends sublimely, the final note lingering tantalisingly. You sit there 'Deaf, Numb & blind' before realising the whole experience is ended. For me, this is, without any question, one of my 10 'desert island discs', and maybe the greatest masterpiece of the last 25 years. You will hear very little to equal this, and any true prog fan who hasn't heard it should be drooling with anticipation at getting hold of this any way they can. Masterful. A classic for years to come. Still reading? Go and buy it!

3.8 stars

The first disc is strong though and is unique by the fact that it has an hour long epic that works for the most part! That must had taken a lot of effort and talent to compose this monster of a track and I applaud the Flower Kings for doing so. The second track is full of quality short tracks. Not very progressive, but it shows the band playing good accessible tunes.

Describe the epic in detail from movement to movement would make me write at least 4 paragraphs, so I will instead describe as a whole its moods, its structure, its quality, coherence, and any other characteristic of it. Structurally, it is a 59 minute long song divided in 19 movements connected each other masterfully with a lot of coherence and a few recurring themes. Its mood varies, but it is mostly a dreamy mellow piece until it wakes you up with the hard rock of 'don't let the devil in'. Then it gets mellow again until it picks up on the 15 minute long climax that is the highlight of the album. The song itself is mostly great, except for a few forgettable parts on the middle like the 4-minute long silence. However, this song won't lose the attention of the listener despite its mellow style of music because of the strong songwriting and musicianship in it.

Astral dog is the only other track of the first disc and is a strong instrumental with excellent guitar playing from Stolt.

Deaf Numb and Blind is the strongest track of the second disc and probably the best song in the album. It is extremely well played, and has great melodies. Stupid girl is a fun, danceable, pop song with good melodies and lyrics, but you have to be in the mood for it. Corruption is an catchy hard rock track with a very good descending organ riff in the beginning, the middle and the end. Power of kindness is a nice laid back and relaxing keyboard solo that uses melodies from the epic. Psycheledic Postcard is not my favorite, it sounds weird in an unpleasant way in the beginning and while it gets better, it doesn't reach the level of musicianship and songwriting of the band itself. Hudson river Siren call is atmospheric, psycheledic, and has some siren like screaming. Magic Pie is a rock/pop extended song with some nice melodies and the gorgeous paintings of sound that the Flower Kigns excel at thanks to their modern instruments. Painter is another highlight of the album and succeeds at being what it wants to be : an accessible rock/pop tune focused on melodies and a good intro. Its keyboard riff on the verses sound similar to the ones in 'back to the world of adventures' and 'I am the walrus' while the chorus is a 'big' hook. Calling home is a good short epic, but I conclude they usually do better than this when writing extended tracks Afterlife is a 'los endos' style track that captures many melodies from the epic.

1-18. The Garden Of Dreams (8/10) 21. Astral Dog (8/10)

CD 2: (72:16) 1. Deaf, Numb And Blind (8.5/10) 2. Stupid Girl (5/10) 3. Corruption (8/10) 4. Power Of Kindness (8/10) 5. Psychedelic Postcard (5.5/10) 6. Hudson River Sirens Call 1998 (6.5/10) 7. Magic Pie (7/10) 8. Painter (8.5/10) 9. Calling Home (6.5/10) 10. Afterlife (7/10)

This is one of the weaker Flower Kings albums (along with Adam&Eve and The Rainmaker), but it still manages to be excellent. The flower Kings have no weak album!

My Grade : B-

I give 4,5 stars to CD1 track 1 to 18. 1 hour in The Garden Of Dreams. A pure delight to listen to well proped up in a sofa. If you don't want to get bore with those padding out stuff Captain Capstan and IKEA By Night let's program your cd player with 1 to 18 track and the last title Astral Dog (track 21). About 67 minutes of deep happiness.

I give only 2,5 stars to CD2. But Deaf, Numb And Blind is very good. A kind of prog/pop but not as weak as that. Power Of Kindness is a 4 minutes track only with organ solo... hmm. Hudson River Sirens Call is sending you to sleep... Perhaps with some sirens ;) Painter isn't a bad title. Perhaps one of the best with Deaf. Curiously, this title make me think about Tears for Fears in The Seeds of Love (1989).

Conclusion : if you are able to listen to the 1st CD at once, don't even think to listen to the 2nd immediately after. You can easily forget the CD2. But if you decide to have a look on it, let's do that when you're busy with your housework for eg.

I discovered TFK music only 5 months ago and slowly I am buying all their Cds. I am very suprised about the huge creativity and production of this group. Just when I believe having found their best one, the next one surprises me again with fantastic music. I got this CD after having Stardust we are, Unfold the future, Alive from Planet earth. Now I cannot stop listening to Garden of Dreams which has become my favourite long track ever!My suggestion is, when you decide to start listening to this song, you must be sure you will not have any interrumption in the next 57 minutes, as it must be listened fully from the very first, to the last note... Nearly one hour of great symphonic progressive rock with a final part which leaves you without words... First CD must be listened just for this track. Second CD is more various with songs with different styles (reggae, pop, prog etc) but still with the typical style of this group. Special mention for Deaf dumb and blind and painter. I hardly give 5 star in my reviews, but for this CD I have been very near to do it..

Now that The Flower Kings have released their new album and with their show coming up in the Netherlands this seems to be a good time for a review of one of my favourite albums from this great band.

The Flower Kings make symphonic prog mostly influenced by Yes, yet they clearly have their own sound, a Stolt composition is always clearly recognizable. Apart from the songwriting and the outstanding musicianship, one of the greatest attractions of this band for me is the singing of Roine Stolt and Hans Froberg, they complement each other really well.

On to Flower power, it's a 2 disc package running over 120 minutes.

Disc 1:

The first disc sees the band at it's absolute peak,central piece here is Garden of Dreams, a well chosen name. Listening to it i always get the feeling that i'm no longer here but in another fairytale world. Be sure you have 1 hour before you start listening though, it's that long and it's a pity to interrupt it.

Garden of dreams contains 18 tracks. Dreamy very melodic songs are connected by beautiful and sometimes quite complex jazzy instrumentals that often echo the tunes from the various songs. Beware in the middle you will be shook rudely awake by "Don't let the devil in" a song that will draw your attention due to the fact that it's quite different from all the others.

Highlights on Garden of dreams are:

"There's no such night" (beautiful vocals from Hans Froberg)

"All you can save" (great guitar solo and vocal combination of Stolt and Froberg)

"Indian summer" (An outstanding melancholy song about the coming of winter, getting older and longing for a better world, sung by Roine Stolt).

Final deal is a passionate ending with Roine Stolt straining a bit on the vocals, i believe this is intentional though.

IMO there's no filler at all on Garden of dreams. The only track that i believe to be less than excellent is "Dungeon of the deep", most of it is a bit monotonous, the ending is great though.

Some other things i noted:

- Abbreviated Garden of dreams reads G.O.D. i wondered if this is a coincidence. Chances of this are far less then 0.1 % and given Roine Stolt's religious tendencies i'm sure it's not.

- In some of the previous reviews it has been suggested that the 18 sections that make up Garden of Dreams are not really connected to each other. This statement made me curious because i had always felt that spiritually Garden of dreams is one suite with tunes that at least resemble each other.

In fact there are (at least) 2 main tunes that keep recurring on Garden of Dreams, they are most clearly heard on "There's no such night" and "All you can save".Both tunes are echoed on "Sunnylane" and "Shadowland".The tune of "There's no such night" is also echoed on "Attack of the monster brief case" and "Final deal". So i don't think the "unconnected" statement stands up.

There are are three other tracks on disc 1: "Ikea by night" (a 4 seconds long joke), "Captain Capstan" also forgettable and "Astral dog" a good jazzy 8 minutes long instrumental that is a bit monotonous.

Disc 2:

There is a second disc. Over 120 minutes long the band certainly put in their day at the office here (again).

Disc 2 is reasonably good but IMO compared to TFK standards a tad weak. Tracks are generally 5-11 minutes long. There are 2 very good tracks that could have been included in the Garden of Dreams: Afterlife and Power of kindness echoing the tunes used in Drawn and Simple song respectively.

Other good songs here: Corruption, Stupid girl (a guilty pleasure, lots of people seem to hate this track).

The other songs are certainly not annoying but to me they don't seem to be outstanding.

To be honest don't take me too seriously concerning the second disc, i may not have listened to it enough (some 15 times) so what i'm saying here is just an indication.

Concluding:

I believe that together with "I am the sun" from the album "Space revolver", "Garden of dreams" is the best work from TFK sofar. It's not an album that i would recommend to people who don't know TFK at all though, or people who are new to prog music in general. In that case pick up Stardust we are, the first disc is great and quite accessible (be patient with "Circus Brimstone" though) and the second disc is also quite good containing the fabulous 25 minutes long epic Stardust we are part 1. Follow up with the superb Space revolver.From that point on you'll have to see for yourself. Be sure to hear them all in the end though.

Rating:

Well it's tempting to give it 5 stars on the strength of Garden of Dreams alone. This suite's certainly worth it and there are lots of albums that get 5 stars and are much shorter than this track alone. It's just easier to make 30 minutes of outstanding music than 120. Second disc is approximately 3 stars though, so following the rating guidelines 4 stars it is. I think of the second disc as a bonus though, i don't think TFK have to edit themselves, the risk of a masterpiece disappearing is too big.

Dirk

An imperfect album. It contains what I still consider the finest piece of music by the Flower Kings (or any other prog band for that matter), Garden Of Dreams. For me, 60 minutes well utilized. I love all of it. I was initially dissapointed when I heard it live, because they cut out a few sections and shortened it to 45 minutes. I now understand that the atmospheric middle sections would kill the momentum of the performance and loose peoples attention. But for me, I love those sections and think they fit the entire theme and concept of the piece beautifully. The first half of the song is definetly the most effective though, and certainly the most musically interesting and exciting. But what a great finale at the end! Excellent piece through and through, and a masterpiece without a doubt. Of the final 3 tracks on CD1, only Astral Dog is a real song, with Captain Capstan being filler (the only time I really felt like that was an appropriate term for a track on a FK album) and IKEA at Night being really just a 5 second drum intro to Astral Dog, which is an excellent Zappa-like guitar solo piece.

CD2, on the other hand, is still what I consider the weakest CD of Flower Kings material. I have grown to appreciate some of it over the years though. The opening track is classic Flower Kings, a very powerful and well written piece that really should be done live at some point. Very good track. The next 5 tracks are decent, if a bit ordinary (though Stupid Girl is not really ordinary......it borders on cheesy, but is redeemed by an excellent Zappa style ending), with Psychedelic Postcard probably being the best of the bunch. The final 4 tracks are somewhat weak, IMO. Magic Pie I just don't like at all, being both derivative and cheesy to my ears. Painter is okay, but just seems rather bland compared to most Flower Kings material. Calling Home starts very promisingly but seems to loose focus part way through and becomes rather aimless by the end. Afterlife is a nice coda to the album, but by this point (after over two hours of music and a farily weak second CD) seems almost like an anti climax.

Garden Of Dreams makes me want to award 5 stars, but since I must consider the album as a whole, I would have to say more like a 3.75 rating, rounded up to 4 (5 stars for CD1, and 2.5 or so for CD2). Still very much essential to any Flower Kings fan though.

This is the album where TFK began to win their fame of releasing everything they wrote, without any kind of selection or quality control. Disc one is a very good album by The Flower Kings, but disc two seems to be released by The Filler Kings instead. And it's a pity. Garden Of Dreams, the huge multipart suite contained in the first CD is really worth the price of the album. It contains so many different moods, rythms and melodies that you can never get bored of it. This is not a single song developed to the maximum, but a nice medley of individual ideas flowing naturally as one amazing epic track. Plus you have at the end Astral Dogs, which is only an improvisation with good guitar jamming, not really necessary for the album, but not bad. Why not making an album containing only this first CD? Instead of it, TFK offer us a second CD. My favourite track off it is Psychedelic Postcard, which starts with a nice melody sung by Stolt's distorted voice with a nice late 60's feeling, until the song becomes a sort of Yes tune with the typical vocal harmonies and Howe-like guitars. I also like Deaf Numb & Blind, with good synths, interesting time signature at times, and even a sort of arabic melody But also you can find two attemps to made commercial/AOR songs (Stupid Girl and Magic Pie, the last lasting 8 boring minutes), along with other average songs with extense jamming, and several instrumentals being the only good one the nice churg-organ driven Power of Kindness. Summary: First CD 4 stars, maybe 4'5. Second CD 2 stars. FInal veredict: 3 stars.

To me this is yet an album that some fans either love or hate well I LOVE SOME FLOWER POWER i mean sure there are some weak tracks here and there but alot of stuff on the second disc and of course all of the first disc really make up for a lot. The Flower Kings have always kept my attention whether its getting proggish or psychedelic or avant of the 70s or getting a little bit mainstream or heavy here in the 90s. Still to me that means they are just so diverse and they prove that on there second double album release. well of course the big highlight as been the most famous FK song ever GARDEN OF DREAMS!!!!! this is probably my favorite FK song as it is something a progger has always dreamed about. its 60 minutes of pure bliss with outrageous solos from guitar and keys, amazing bass sections, incredible drumming, and emotional vocals that will bring a tear to your eye. The boys from Sweden really out did themselves with this song as it has all sort of styles from rock, jazz, avant, psychedelic, neo-prog, hard rock oh i could go on and on but basically if you want to get this album just for this song do it. But the other tracks fare well too i mean sure Captain Capstan is just a keyboard thing it doesn't however though IKEA by Night i love alot because JAIME IS JUST SICK!!!!! its just a cool drum can't help i'm a drummer i love the drums. Then you have the SICK INSTRUMENTAL Astral Dog oh my lord this is a big time Roine Stolt song with some sick licks by the main man himself. And well the second cd has some weak tracks but alot of the songs are really good. Deaf, Numb, and Blind is a very produced 11 minute rocker which at first kinda has an eygptian feel to it. Stupid Girl seems to be a song most people hate i actually love the song i mean gosh the cool guitar solo the awesome groove by some bass and drums i mean i love it can't understand why some people don't like this song. Corruption is another really good rocker by FK with some nice licks by Stolt. Power of Kindness is an okay filler with some recurring themes from Garden of Dreams made by keys. Psycedelic Postcard I REALLY LIKE i thought for a moment it was gonna be a cheap pink floyd 60s knockoff but it actually is really good i love the nice melodic section and man hasse rocks with vocals on this song not to mention Roine is such SOOOOOOO smooth on that guitar. then you got another filler track called Hudsen River Call Since 1998 which is really messed up so don't pay attention to that song lol. Then you get to the very Neo Prog melodic section of disc 2 which has its moments but can come off cheesy. Magic Pie isn't a great track but its okay i mean hasse does do a good job on vocals. Painter is an okay track too with some rockin sections in there. Calling Home i really like but not as much as Deaf, Numb, and Blind but the vocal harmonies at the end are really great kinda gives ya a nice warm feeling. Afterlife i really like one of my favorite FK filler songs as i dunno some about the recurring theme espeically in the keys i just love so much its just a me thing i guess. But still this album is not bad its not the best from the Flower Kings but there are moments which will make you say they and some moments that will blow you away. But if your a hardcore fan like me get it for the fact you have multiple songs on here or if you just wanna get it for Garden of Dreams i advise you too cause that song really makes this album shine.

This is definitely another excellent album by the Flower Kings which to me it sounds like a concept album even though the music does not seem to transcend into something with singular theme. It's probably the band's intention to give the listeners with varied styles and textures. With its powerful long epic Garden of Dreams that is broken down into 18 pieces with varied duration each ranging from1 minute to 5 minutes plus. From this standpoint I could sense that the division into 18 pieces seems too many (it's hard to memorize) let alone the overall duration that takes almost one hour less 3 seconds. But don't get me wrong, musically this long epic is truly an excellent music, overall. Only when the track enters number 12 and 13 I don't see its connection, musically, with previous 11 tracks - it seems to me so disjointed because suddenly it turns out to be a Klaus Schulze thing (sort of) - or something like a space music.

From track 1 to track 11 I can assure you that these parts are truly terrific music combining mostly symphonic styles with rock and sometimes jazz. As usual, first track "Dawn" (1:34) serves like an overture followed with symphonic style "Simple Song" (1:49). Track / part 3 "Business Vamp" (4:57) starts off beautifully with pretty melodic keyboard accompanied with the music in "flowing" style. It's an amazing track and it's gonna favor those of you who adore neo prog music. Well, you know ... typical neo prog lovers (like me, of course!) loves beautiful melodies that are memorable like those melodies produced by Marillion's Bitter Suite "It's getting late ...etc" of the Misplaced Childhood album. I think, you know what I mean ... If you don't, my apology ..(and I recommend you to have Misplaced Childhood album by Marillion first before you enjoy this CD!).

Neat tracks: 4 - 9 are excellent continuation of the previous parts with consistent delivery of varied music textures with singular musical theme. Track 4 "All You Can Save" (5:01) guitar solo reminds me to David Gilmour style. Bodin supports its keyboard work beautifully especially at the end of the solo with its pulsating sounds, unique to Bodin's style. Tracks 5 and 6 are great tracks especially when it reaches track 9 "Don't let the d'Evil in" which resembles a combination of symphonic and classic rock music. It has strong melody with great riffs and fills by Roine's guitar work. Really cool.

Track 10 "Love is The Word" brings the music into a bit of avant-garde with great choir line. The style presented here confirms to me that the band wants to give the listeners with beautiful arrangement in basically not straight forward structure of music. Bodin's keyboard work characterizes this track. Track 11 "There's No Such Night" to me is like a closure to this epic. But it flows to next spacey track which I do not favor and I consider it's an error that the band has made with this epic. When the band bring the music back with track 14 "Indian Summer" it sounds that the music has derailed from the original souls of tracks 1 to 11 - musically. It seems to me like another epic and it does not serve as a cohesive whole with track 1 to 11.

"Astral Dog" (written by Stolt and Salazar) is another loose song to conclude disc one. This song is an instrumental piece with Stolt's solo in jazzy style. It's an excellent track - individually.

Disc 2 starts off with "Deaf, Numb and Blind" (11:00) which has a strong composition, powerful song writing - combining symphonic keyboard style and excellent guitar work which at the beginning part has an eastern nuance in its melody. It's an amazing track for me. I like the style in which the music moves in crescendo from mellow opening into upbeat tempo where the vocal starts to roll. It's a dynamic song. Oh yes, it offers many differen styles and textures which make the music is really "rich" in its composition. Bravo TFK! I love you guys ...!!!

"Stupid Girl" (6:49) starts with electronic drumming and it's probably the only song which has different style - but it still an excellent track though. "Corruption" (5:54) is a favorite of mine as it combines a classic rock nuance with symphonic prog music. Awesome!

Other songs presented on Disc Two are all excellent in compositions. "Calling Home" is probably the highlight as it combines church organ sounds with symphonic style in relatively medium tempo music.

It's an excellent addition to any prog music collection; highly recommended to prog freaks who appreciate great music. I tend to give this album a five star rating. But considering the disjointed parts at the long epic, I can only give four star plus for this album. But I'm sure this album will satisfy your prog needs and The Flower Kings is one of great bands that deliver great music. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

This double album is the follow up to the previous studio double album "Stardust We Are". It is a worthy follow up record, but not quite as good in my opinion.This one has a lot more slower passages but they do mix things up well.

The first song is 18 tracks really but hey if they want to call it one 60 minute track who am I to argue. Anyway I do love the FLOWER KINGS, and there are some great songs on these two discs. I prefer the second record but on the first disc songs 2 and 6 from "The Garden of Dreams" are standouts to me. As well as "Astral Dog" that features some amazing guitar throughout.

On the second disc I like "Psychedelic Postcard" which opens with hilarious processed vocals. "Painter" is very good too, kind of a dreamy relaxed tune with a nice guitar melody. My absolute favourite is "Magic Pie" an uplifting song with fantastic vocals. I can play that one over and over again, one of the catchiest songs the FLOWER KINGS have ever done.

Overall this is a very good release with lots of highlights, and great playing as usual from the band.

I must say I was very surprised when I knew that after releasing a massive double studio album, the next Flower King´s CD would be... another double album of original material. In a time most rock bands are putting out an album each 2 or 3 years, it was really amazing thta a symphonic prog band would produce that amount of music in only an year and a half time.

I am convinced that Roine Stolt´s prime as a songwriter was around the time of the original, "classic", line up. So this includes Flower Power which is as bit as good as the previous Stardust We Are. Ok, they are different, but if the title track of Stardust... is one of their most celebrate epics ever, so is their own Close To The Edge suite: Garden Of Dreams. This song is worth the price of the record alone (actually a colletion of 18 tracks put together, but they blend so well, it´s really hard to imagine it any other way than as a song). It´s one of the very few hour long pieces that is a pleasure to hear from beginning to end.

But there are other fine tunes too on record two, although no one really moved me as much as Garden Of Dreams. Painter, Corruption and Calling Home being some of the most criminally forgotten gems. There is only one really song that I did not like in the whole album: Hudson River Sirens Call 1998 aside (sounds like a boring filler). The rest varies from very good to excellent. I even like the first Hans Froberg song to be recorded by TFH, Magic Pie. Popish? Yeah, and so what? It´s still a great tune. The bad news were that this is the last album recorded with the original bassist Michael Stolt. His leaving would affect the chemistry inside the band, but that would be felt in the future. On this album the band shines and it´s better to be remembered this way.

So, this is probably the last of the "great" quartet of classic stuff they recorded. It´s essential to anyone who loves symphonic progressive rock, although, like the previous Stardust... a little too long, which inevitably does include a bit of filler stuff, even though I´m beginning to think that even those ones are better than I initially thought. Just be patient to listen carefuly and you´ll hear a truly remarkable album with lots of great moments.

The least I can say, is that to review the entire TFK discography is a time consuming task. Not only did they release many albums, but most of them are quite lenghty, some are double ones and some are both. Like "Flower Power". Almost two hours and a half ! So, here we go.

One of the lenghtiest song in the rock industry (about one hour) is the core of this album. There is a shorter version available on their semi-rare "Edition Limitée" which lasts for about eight minutes but was a pre-version of this track.

Several pieces of this "song" are appealing. Both "Dawn" and "Simple Song" are pure in the TFK tradition and features a brilliant Roine on the vocals. Some other numbers will be a bit more chaotic (but this is a TFK feature so be prepared). "Business Camp" is one like this : combining sweet moments but mixing them with complex instrumental parts. The next number "All You Can save" sounds very nice to me : full of emotional guitar break and, again 100% in line with previous TFK songs.

"Attack of The Monster Briefcase" is pure Genesis during the intro and is rather hard for most of it. Not too bad, though. "Mr Hope Goes To Wall Street" sounds as an ELP song (more a E song than an L or a P one if you see what I mean). The first poor track, but let's consider it as a transition track since it is very short. What a change with "Did I Tell You" full of lightness and emotions.

I really like this band a lot when they produce such beautiful music. Of course, it sounds as coming out of the greatest band from the seventies we all (?) love. And that's exactly why I love TFK. They remind me my youth and the bands I am listening for some thirty-five years now. Since most of them have stopped their career or do not produce interesting music these days, I just fill the gap with bands like TFK. And I have listended to thousands of prog (and non-prog) releases.

The title track sounds as a Broadway comedy. Not really my cup of tea. Another weak track follows : "Don't Let The d'Evil In" is a hard-rock number which is not really the type of music for TFK. Press next, you will do yourself a favour. I'm afraid that the weak songs follow one another at this point. "Love Is The Word" is difficult to bear. At this stage, I cannot consider this lenghty suite as one track any longer. Just a serie of short numbers put one after the other with a definite lack in unity.

The next piece is there to highlight this comment. But this time, TFK reverts to their roots : "There's No Such Night" is a superb melody with great vocals. Like to have a bit more of these. But alas, "The Mean Machine" is a dull instrumental that reminds me at time "On The Run" from DSOTM. It was not the best moment on this great album. Again, press next to avoid irritation.

The scary mood of "Dungeon Of The Deep" is a pure masquarade. Some religious choir sounds and females singing "Hallelujah". Pretty boring. But you know what you do (but at this moment I have already recommend four times to press next). "Indian Summer" is another dull song : piano bar oriented. You know, the type of music you could hear in a classy hotel while having dinner and that nobody put any attention to. But, by now the next button has no secret for you.

ELP are back again with "Sunny Lane". But this jazzy keyboards oriented song is not appealing at all, I'm afraid. It will only become a good one during its second half. But again, it could have been cut into two since there are absolutely no main theme in this lenghty piece. At least it would have made one good track more in this long list of average to poor pieces. "Gardens Revisited" is better than the title track. Great guitar work again. The listener had to wait for quite a long time to get another good song.

When one gets to the end of this collection of eighteen numbers; there's only one word that comes though my mind "Phew, it's over ! Even if "Shadowland" is also a good moment of TFK music.

Now, I would really like to know what's the use of releasing a song that lasts for only FOUR seconds (a very short drum "solo"). Maybe to appear in the Book Of Records ? But I have already heard one that short (but I do not remember on which album). They are probably looking forward to appear there in two entries : the shortest "song" ever written as well as being the band producing the longest albums in the rock history. In the track listing, it follows "Captain Capstan" which is completely useless as well. "Astral Dog" closes the first CD on a rather noisy mood. Gosh! I still have one CD to review to get it done.

But I'll get a break (and I mean it) for dinner and come back little later.

Dinner is over. I just hope I won't get an indigestion with the second CD.

Actually, the opener is a more TFK track, although the intrumental intro is not that great. But form the moment Roine starts singing, it'll pick up nicely; till the end. But the joy will be short. "Stupid Girl" is more hard-rock oriented than usual for TFK. They already produced such a track on CD one with "Don't Let The d'Evil In". This one is not any better. It ends up in a useless jam.

"Corruption" does not belong to the best of their repertoire but it is not the worse track of this album. Somewhat uninspired I guess. As "Dungeon Of The Deep" on CD one, "Power of Kindness" has a religious flavour. Mr. Roine should have been very mystical those days. What to say about "Psycodelic Postcard" ? That is it pure annoyance ? Inspiration is really elsewhere, but this is a global remark for this work so far. Some Yes sounds (finally, I should say) after five minutes.

"Hudson River Sirens Call 1998" is not worse than most of the other songs, but is there any contest for producing not the worst song here ? Aerial female vocals will bring some sweetness and spacey feeling. The religious mood prevails for the last thirty seconds. Horrible section.

By now, I really have a hard time. Fortunately, "Magic Pie" is a song which will bring me some beautiful feeling. Very melodic, smooth and harmonious vocals. My favourite track of the album. Why didn't they stick more to what they do best ? Just writing nice pieces of music. Like "Painter". Wow ! Two great tracks in a row !

"Calling At Home" is another long track featuring some good and some less interesting parts. Average Should I say. In-line with this album. "After Life" closes this endless record. This instrumental is again not the worse track of the list. A nice melody to forget all these useless tracks.

TFK would have been inspired to cut this "work" into two. As such it would have been a decent piece of music. I am rather disapointed with this album. It is the first one to which I will apply a low rating (not speaking about "Edition Limitée"). Some good moments but really not enough to justify a higher one than two stars.

I'm going to review this song by song, I think this is a typical album to do this (TFK usually is in fact because of their huge difference in style and quality in each and every song).

CD 1

1. Garden of dreams. To start with the highlight you could say. This has to be one of the most unique, special and great compositions ever. I like epics like this, they are endless and in this case I enjoy every minute when I play this (except maybe for a few minutes in the middle). And I think this is an incredible performance for almost exactly 1 hour long. This is absolutely 5*.

2 and 3. These are useless intermezzo's. I think it's meant to be humour. To write the longest and shortest song ever on one album or something like that. I still give them 1*.

4. Astral Dog. This is a very nice one. Instrumental typical TFK track with good guitar work by Roine. 4*

CD 2

1. Another great opener with Deaf numb & blind. I almost like every over 10 minute song by TFK. They are just very good in writing and performing these epics. Nice intro too. 5*.

2. Stupid Girl. Interesting song with original lyrics and great guitar by Stolt again. 4.5 *

3. Corruption. Average song by TFK standards. Not much to say about this one. 3*.

4. Power of kindness. Same really. Not too special. 3*.

5. Psychedelic postcard. Another original, quite humoristic one. Funny voice. Good track 4*.

6. Hudson river etc. This is a poor one really. Useless. 2*.

7. Magic Pie. Much better again, though not really essential to me. 3.5*

8. Painter. I like this one. Very nice tune with good instrumental passages. 4.5 *

9. Calling home. This is in fact one of the few over 10 minutes songs I not too fond of. No spectacle here. 3*.

10. Afterlife. One of the average ones. Not essential. 3*.

Despite the fact there are only a few excellent songs on this double CD I still give it 5 stars. And that's because of the superepic. This track is so special. It's good enough on its own to be worth 5 for the entire album. I have to do this.

It could be easily a 5-star album :-), BUT:

Disc 1: They really insist to some concept, connecting all those songs together. A normal concept album should have some concept, yeah? What is that here? Is there a story? There isnt. Some extremely banal lyrics about lost love, then about a yuppie going to Wall Street???, then references to some soldier or nuclear war?, then the total meaningless blahblah in Sunny Lane. Or are there similar songs, same style bound in a concept? No. Actually 85% of the epic is excellent, they improved much from RS's The Flower King, its kinda flawless, if I skip the Mean Machine and Dungeon. But who are the opera singers here? The tenor is the Satan? Who is the soprano? The Angel of God? And after the church choir we get the plain piano, nice, but I dont understand the connection. Chimaera...Where excellent and bad moments attached. Much less pointless solos, but still too much, like in Astral Dog. The musical highlights are: Attack..., middle section of Sunny Lane, beginning of Gardens Revisited, Shadowland (although the music is ceremonial and elevated, so where is the shadowland? Or Shadowland is that we aspire for?) Not considering that the titles are inconsequent, most of the music is quite ok. The most horrible part is the chorus section in Dungeon, brrr...

Disc 2: Wow, starting lightyears better! Deaf... sounds like a masterpiece to me? The most valuable part, coherent, original, ingenious. The solos derivated from the main theme, the short acoustic guitar tune is excellent in its simplicity. Actually, upon the lyrics its a protest song against nuclear weapons. Stupid girl is U2 mixed with Simple Minds as I read in some previous review, I totally agree. Nice, catchy pop song, I love it! Typical example that the less sometimes is more. The random guitar background behind the first verse is excellent. The beginning of Corruption is mindblowing, other parts are forgettable. The lyrics are quite meaningful, at least. Then they play again the tune from Simple song, again stating that there is some concept here. If I had any ideas so far, that there IS any concept on Cd1,now Im totally lost again. The Postcard is excellent, but RS shamelessly copies Steve Howe's guitar style. Hudson River I HATE, what is this, addition to the nonexisting concept? :-) And finally a song that fits FK's style the most. Just a simple love song with excellent vocals from Froberg (RS should pack off from the microphone generally, extremely weak singer if I compare to HF..). No concept, no meaningless solos, the cemballo sounds excellent, finally there is a TUNE in the guitar solo, this is the highlight! Painter is another Magic Pie, but its getting a bit boring after that. The last three ones doesnt add up much to me to the whole. 50% of disc 2 could be left out, it could have been much better. 140 minutes of music is not a problem, but if gets from nowhere to anywhere, than definitely IT IS.

I have recently listened to all the Flower Kings' studio albums in chronological order(over several days!). In my opinion this is their best, by a short head from 'Unfold the future'. There is a remarkable consistency ( some might say sameness)over all their albums, but here they excel themselves especially with the magnificent epic 'Garden of dreams', which goes through an amazing range of styles. There is even room for a good instrumental after it! CD2 is more varied in quality, but the longer tracks stand out. This is a good introduction to the Flower Kings. I can't give any of their albums 5 stars, because of vatiation of quality but this one comes closest. Maybe 4.5 stars.

Another excellant release by our Swedish friends The Flower Kings! They seem to never run out of ideas! This album is their second double album containing the almost hour long piece Garden of Dreams. On the first disc Garden of Dreams is definately the highlight especially the Simple Song section. Also on the first disc check out IKEA By Night. It's a drum solo and it's only 5 seconds long! The second disc is nowhere near as good as the first but the tracks Deaf, Numb, and Blind and Calling Home are decent. Stay away from the worst filler on the album, Stupid Girl, it is the Flower Kings going into a realm of music they don't normally and shouldn't do. Overall it's a very nice album, keep it coming Flower Kings!

An imperfect album. It contains what I still consider the finest piece of music by the Flower Kings (or any other prog band for that matter), Garden Of Dreams. For me, 60 minutes well utilized. I love all of it. I was initially disappointed when I heard it live, because they cut out a few sections and shortened it to 45 minutes. I now understand that the atmospheric middle sections would kill the momentum of the performance and loose peoples attention. But for me, I love those sections and think they fit the entire theme and concept of the piece beautifully. The first half of the song is definitely the most effective though, and certainly the most musically interesting and exciting. But what a great finale at the end! Excellent piece through and through, and a masterpiece without a doubt. To those who say this is just a bunch of different songs strung together I say bah!!!! Well, I suppose I could see how you might get that impression. However, there are musical (in particular) and lyrical themes that run through the entire thing. I think all of it fits together seamlessly. The piece is largely the work of Tomas Bodin and represents his biggest contribution to the writing of any Flower Kings album (the song is based almost entirely around the first 7 minutes which was written by Bodin........he and Roine then proceeded to flesh it out with more material developed off of the original tune with Roine writing all the lyrics).

Of the final 3 tracks on CD1, only Astral Dog is a real song, with Captain Capstan being filler (the only time I really felt like that was an appropriate term for a track on a FK album) and IKEA at Night being really just a 5 second drum intro to Astral Dog, which is an excellent Zappa-like guitar solo piece. This one was apparently created by taking a Jamie Salazar drum track from Roine's Hydrophonia solo album and putting completely different music over it to create a drum part quite different from what Salazar would normally have done. It works fantastically I must say.

CD2, on the other hand, is still what I consider the weakest CD of Flower Kings material, possibly only Adam & Eve being weaker in my view. I have grown to appreciate some of it over the years though. The opening track is classic Flower Kings, a very powerful and well written piece that really should be done live at some point. Very good track. The next 5 tracks are decent, if a bit ordinary (though Stupid Girl is not really ordinary......it borders on cheesy, but is redeemed by an excellent Zappa style ending), with Psychedelic Postcard probably being the best of the bunch. The final 4 tracks are somewhat weak, IMO. Magic Pie I just don't like at all, being both derivative and cheesy to my ears. Painter is okay, but just seems rather bland compared to most Flower Kings material (this song takes on new life in it's remixed form on The Road Back Home compilation). Calling Home starts very promisingly, with a very dramatic and symphonic opening with great vocals by Froberg, but seems to loose focus part way through and becomes rather aimless by the end. Afterlife is a nice coda to the album, but by this point (after over two hours of music and a fairly weak second CD) seems almost like an anti climax.

Garden Of Dreams makes me want to award 5 stars, but since I must consider the album as a whole, I would have to say more like a 3.75 rating, rounded up to 4 (5 stars for CD1, and 2.5 or so for CD2). Still very much essential to any Flower Kings fan though.

Like almost every The Flower Kings's double album, "Flower Power" is an irregular one... Nevertheless, it has some great moments, worthy to be tasted by every prog lover.

In "Flower Power", the first Cd clearly surpases the second one, with the great Garden of Eden, a brilliant epic with great melodies. The musical developement here is just marvellous, being the central theme the one in Sunny Lane, funny and precious track. This first Cd closes with Astral Dog, another worthy track, similar to Don of the Universe in "Stardust We Are".

But the second Cd has some flaws, with a bunch of insipid songs like Deaf Numb and Bling, Stupid Girl, Corruption... They are not bad, just under the level of quality of the first Cd. Nevertheless, in this second part of the album we can find Magic Pie, a good prog flick composed by the singer Hans Fröberg, with a great keyboard solo; Psychedelic Postcard, odd but very good and Calling Home, an imaginative track with some good melodies and Hans choirs.

Instrumentally, the album is at the same level of the previous "Stardust We Are", wich is similar to "Flower Power" in style and execution, but surpasing it in both aspects... Maybe the protagonism of Hans Fröberg's voice in the second Cd is the most remarkable difference. Roine Stolt's guitar work is also over the top, but not as incredible as later albums like "Unfold the Future". His singing improved a bit from "Stardust We Are", reaching higher notes and adding some new textures to his voice.

Best tracks: Garden of Eden (the longest The Flower Kings's epic), Astral Dog (great rythmic track with an appropiated psychedelic touch...), Magic Pie (Hans Fröberg shines here...) and Calling Home.

Conclusion: if you like the album "Stardust We Are", you'll surely enjoy "Flower Power", wich is similar in style... Nevertheless, this fourth The Flower Kings's offering is less complete that their previous work, having a great first Cd, but an irregular and sometimes dull second one. But the complete album is worthy of a close listening anyway.

Cd 1 rating: ****1/2. Cd 2 rating: ***

My rating: ***1/2

In My Not So Humble Opinion:

"Flower Power" by The Flower Kings is among the best all around Flower Kings albums.

I picked up "Flower Power" in the midst of a music buying frenzy that started in mid two thousand and seven and ended earlier this year. I picked up a lot of music during that time . . . I stopped counting after two hundred CD's. During this time period I acquired the entire Flower King's Discography amongst a whole bunch of other symphonic and neo prog. I say this to illustrate that I've had "Flower Power" for a yeah and a half now, though it only hit me as a masterpiece about two months ago. It was lost in the shuffle for a year.

This CD has all of the tricks and tribulations that one would expect from any The Flower King's CD. Excellent sound mix, tasteful keyboards by Tomas Bodin, tear jerking beauty from Roine Stolt's guitar solos. In addition, The Flower King's first rhythm section of Roine's brother Michael on bass and Jaime Salazar on drums is still in tact and firing on all cylinders. While, we don't quite get the mastery of Jonas Reingold yet, M. Stolt does a fine job here.

You can't talk about "Flower Power" without focusing on the epic "Garden of Dreams", a sixty minute romp through a variety of styles, moods and tones. The entire epic is a masterpiece from the rollicking theme of "Business Vamp" straight into Roine's first soulful solo in "All You Can Save". "Attack of the Monster Briefcase" revisits the "Business Vamp" theme with Salazar and extra percussionist Hasse Bruniusson at their percussive best; the cymbals behind the main beat are phenomenal. My favorite part of the "Garden of Dreams" epic is the "Mr. Hope Goes to Washington" section; Mr. Hope starts with about a minute of chaos produced by Michael Stolt's walking bass, Tomas Bodin's highly modulated keys and Mr. Burniusson's odd ball percussive work. Out of the midst of the chaos, Bodin breaks into a Steely Dan sounding riff with Roine Stolt doing a beautiful Walter Becker impersonation on the accompanying solo.

One of my criteria for a five star CD is whether or not there are any spine tingling moments. The first truly spine tingling moment for me comes in "Did I Tell You". As best as I can figure out, this is where God laments the violence in humanity, though it's sung from the perspective of a father loosing a son. I'm not horribly religious, but this bit is terribly powerful. Roine Stolt's voice is so perfect for this bit. Salazar's straight rhythm behind the minimalist music adds a beautiful character to this already magnificent bit.

Ironically, the "Garden of Dreams" section is one of the least memorable parts of the epic; it simply serves as a recovery period from the emotionally charged "Did I Tell You" with just enough space until the rocking "Don't Let the d'Evil In". Hasse Froberg joins in the fun by adding a nice harmony to Roine's vocals in "Love is the Word", Stolt's clean solo at the end of this piece is noteworthy as well.

"There's No Such Night" is similar to "Did I Tell You" in that the music is more a canvas for the vocals to stand out, though not as emotional. "The Mean Machine" is the first of two atmosphere pieces, this one a fairly energetic keyboard arpeggio with Tomas Bodin noodling above. From here, we hit "Dungeon of the Deep" which is one of two pieces from this album that I'll be playing in my house this Halloween. Lots of strings and oddly creepy choirs. "Indian Summer" is a somewhat wistful, reminiscent piece reminding me vaguely of something that Ralph Vaughn Williams or George Gershwin would write. "Sunny Lane" revisits the arpeggio from "The Mean Machine" with a vastly more upbeat sound and Tomas Bodin shining. "Gardens Revisited" and "Shadowland" are a pair of instrumentals featuring Roine at his best. Finally, "The Final Deal" is the 'Supper's Ending' to the piece, the long drawn out chords with the final message which alludes to a final resting place, my interpretation, the hero of the story heads off to heaven to meet God, "The dream is real" cries Roine, "it's more than we asked for." Please, don't let the religious overtones scare you off of this one, it's not over the top and the focus on ninety percent of the epic is the music and not the lyrics.

"IKEA by Night" written by Jaime Salazar is one of the funniest pieces of music in history. If I have a choice, I'd like it to be my deathbed music. I thank Progrules for this (see page 16 of The Flower Kings Appreciation Thread for details). "Astral Dog" is a somewhat Zappaesque instrumental, giving Roine another chance to shine.

Deep breath . . . ok, that was disk one. I am going to go through disc two a little more quickly in an effort to keep this under two thousand words.

"Deaf, Numb and Blind" is eleven minutes of fun, great vocals and drumming throughout. Personally, I really like "Stupid Girl" though it is on the poppy side. With a catchy chorus and somewhat bouncy feel, this one could have been a single with a little shortening . . . cause butter makes everything better. Corruption is a good enough song with Froberg's backing vocals adding to the chorus. "Power of Kindness" is a pipe organ piece by Bodin, more of a mood piece than one that really commands your attention.

"Psychedelic Postcard" shows the Yes influences nicely, more great harmonies especially towards the end with Stolt pretending to be Steve Howe; not my favorite song on the album, but nice nonetheless. "Hudson River Siren's Call 1998" is five minutes of muted haunting melody with an un-credited female vocalist warbling. This is the other song that will be played in the house of Roland this Halloween. The choir at the very end of the piece is just plain unsettling. (As a side note, this is a great song to irritate your neighbors if you work in a cube farm).

"Magic Pie" is one of their more controversial songs, many die hard Flower Kings fans, absolutely hate the song. It's reminiscent of seventies pop, think Ambrosia or maybe a Foreigner ballad from the eighties. It's not your typical Flower King fare, though written and sung by Mr. Froberg you'd almost expect something different. It reminds me of a high school dance. Of course, on the opposite end of the polarizing spectrum is "Painter" which really just kind of blends in there for me, and frankly, I don't think I've heard anyone really make a comment about this one. It's kind of forgettable, not bad, just not memorable.

"Calling Home" is a fairly progressive piece showcasing the rhythm section and, again, Roine Stolt on guitar. His solo at the seven minute mark is nicely done and the piece in total has a Genesis feel. Finally, we get to "Afterlife" which is a fairly simple closer, revisiting the sound of the entire album.

All in all, this is a fantastic double album, highlighted by the magnificent "Garden of Dreams", the Flower Kings epic to end all epics . . . or something catchy like that. Five stars.

Well this actually proves the point - I listened to this CD way before I had adjusted my music appreciation to include the genius of Stolte & Co - I have just given this a few spins & was completely blown away! The Garden of Dreams has 18 partoids, and only part two is sub FK standard, the rest is simply spiffing, in fact listen to parts 5 and 6 (instrumentals) and these are of the quality one has come to expect - Sheer brilliance, then parts 16 and 17 which are equally brilliant - This epic has sort of a miasma of Yes, Genesis and ELP and it all works very nicely to bring about a MASTERPIECE. Possibly just a tad below Monster & Men but almost getting there -= This is a must have composition for any FK fan. I also love the track Astral Dog - another nice Stolte effort. CD2 ? Well Deaf Dumb & Blind is brilliant with a cinema show instrumental rythym and superb guitar & synth riffs and nice mellotron work., I also love the track Corruption with nice organ work and the peaceful "Power of Kindness" - a churchy composition., If youy also take in the excellent Psycedelic Postcard and calling home then you have a peach of a CD. FIVE STARS anyone?? YEP, get it bought.

Well what's their to say about these guys.

One thing is that they're everything I like about prog, melodic, impressive and mature.

Not just a bunch off fake jazz musicians trying to play stupid and meaninless odd rhythyms to try and impress.

This album proves it.

Not their best in my opinion, but still one enjoyable album.

The one down side about this album is that it is near 2 and a half hours, which is longer than most films, and can seem quite tiring, but besides that, the strongness of the material just seems to carry it well. At least they didn't do a Prince (3 disc cd, woo, who does he think he is, Final Fantasy games)

This also made one of the longest songs ever, the epic and bombastic Garden Of Dreams, which is just under an hour long, almost half the album.

You can argue which side is better, but I do go in favour of the first, but really do like the second as well.

These guys also suffer from the Supertramp syndrome, where they have 2 lead singers and you favour a voice more than the other. I do like Roines voice, but when it comes down to it, Hasse has the superior vocals.

CD 1

Garden Of Dreams (1-18)

1. Dawn - Nice proggy intro. 8/10

2. Simple Song - Very beautiful. Great atmosphere. 10/10

3. Business Vamp - Love the quite dark turns this song takes. The instrumental sections are amazing. 9/10

4. All You Can Save - Quite Steely Dan melodies. Amazing guitar solo. 9/10

5. Attack Of The Monster Briefcase - Phenomanal instrumental. 10/10

6. Mr. Hope Goes To Wall Street - I feel sorry for this Mr. Hope, he is always in their songs. Crazy instrumental work. 9/10

7.Did I Tell You - Very low fi. The instrumental sections are very beautiful. 9/10

8. Garden Of Dreams - Hasse's vocals are just amazing. What an amazing build up. 10/10

9. Don't Let The d'Evil In - What a rocking song. Great chorus. Very kick ass. Has quite a Fire Garden era Steve Vai vibe to it. 10/10

10. Love Is The Word - The intro sounds like Cradle Of Filth. Such a cool song. Very proggy. Love the layered vocals. 10/10

11. There's No Such Light - Beautiful instrumental work. One of Roine's best vocal performances. 10/10

12. The Mean Machine - The operatic vocals sound like that guy from the Go Compare adverts. Weird collection of noises. 9/10

13. Dungeons Of The Deep - This is basically the End Of Days soundtrack. 10/10

14. Indian Summer - Piano work is beautiful. The arrangement is just spectacular. 10/10

15. Sunny Lane - Quite trancy. The melodies again are very Steely Dan. 10/10

16. Gardens Revisted - Some great guitar work. 8/10

17. Shadowland - Some amazing proggy arrangements and mellotron work. 9/10

18. The Final Deal - A great ending to one amazing piece of music. What an epic. 9/10

19. Captain Capstan - Increasing circus music. Quite cool. 9/10

20. IKEA By Night - Only 5 seconds, but pretty cool. 10/10

21. Astral Dog - Beautiful improv guitar work. Roine is one amazing guitarist. 9/10

CD 2

1. Deaf, Numb & Blind - A magical journey of a song. Amazing instrumental work and discourse between the instruments. 8/10

2. Stupid Girl - Reminds me of a Megadeth slow song. Very poppy, but amazing. Great chours. Love the ending. 10/10

3. Corruption - Again, very cheesy, but effective. 9/10

4. Power Of Kindness - Very Genesis. Reminds me of chruch organ pieces. 9/10

5. Psycedlic Postcard - Love the effects on Roine's voice. Just a great piece of prog with amazing instrumental work.

6. Hudson River Sirens Call 1998 - Almost like a collection of ambient noise. Quite nice. The female operatic vocals just sound stupid. 7/10

7. Magic Pie - Incredibly cheesy. The lyrics are quite stupid. The vocals and melodies are amazing. It sounds like a cheesy Extreme song. 9/10

8. Painter - The chord sequence is the same as Spice Girl's Too Much. The vocal harmonies are amazing. Great chorus. 9/10

9. Calling Home - Vocals are amazing. This is a bit too plain, and usually the Kings would make something a little more instresting. 7/10

10. Afterlife - A nice wee instrumental to end a pretty amazing album. 8/10

CONCLUSION: Not their best, but still an amazing album.

Steve's Album Of The Day : "Flower Power" by The Flower Kings. I discovered these Swedish proggers about 10 years ago, and they have always proved to be an interesting listen. Emulating Genesis, Yes, and perhaps even Frank Zappa blended with a bit of modern Jazz fusion, they sound both familiar and fresh. This double CD from 1999 was a step beyond their previous releases, and centers on the 59 minute epic " Garden of Dreams". With over 140 minutes of music spread over the two CDs, it's a lot to digest, and does seem to lose a bit of focus at times, but I've found that if you take each track individually they do stand up better. All in all it's become one of my favourite Flower King's recordings.

Highlights : "Garden Of Dreams", "Deaf, Numb, & Blind", "Magic Pie", "Calling Home"

The Flower Kings' fourth album is the terribly named, in my opinion, Flower Power. But, Flower Power, is not like the title. Flower Power is in fact an album of extraordinary melodies and musicianship. The first song on the album is the 59 minute epic "Garden Of Dreams", which is one of the longest prog songs of all time. This symphonic epic combines all of The Flower Kings' strengths as composers and musicians into one hour long spectacle. The song has 18 sections, so the piece never gets boring. The finale "The Final Deal" has to be TFK's greatest moment. The following two songs on the first disc ("Captain Capstan" and "IKEA By Night") are just extremely short instrumental fillers before leading up to the fantastic Zappa-influenced instrumental "Astral Dog". Stolt truly is a great, yet underrated, guitarist. The first disc is perfect, with no faults. The second disc is trademark Flower Kings with songs hovering around an average of 6 minutes. Not as good as the first disc, but it holds its own. Overall, a great album from the Swedish proggers and it is definitely their best. "Garden Of Dreams" is one of the best songs of all time.

Another double-CD, the second in a row, for TFK. It features the super-epic 1-hour "Garden of Dreams", various very short tracks, and standard FK quite long songs on the second CD. The second is an excellent addition to a TFK collection, and the first one is... a masterpiece. In this special case, I mean, the 60-minute song + others, it is difficult not considering the main event alone, to rate this outing. Let's see...

The second CD brings new musical constructions form FK, when comparing to the first 3 CD's. The longer songs, as usual again, are the best, with typical symphonic and melodic qualities, where the keyboard of Bodin and the guitar of Stolt are again very good and original, with changes of tempos and time-sigs, with lots of variations "inside" each song. Tracks # 1,2,5,7,9 are excellent, and the others ones are of the same caliber as those on the previous releases.

On the first, "Astral Dog" is very different from what we are used to TFK, being instrumental and having a space atmosphere. The short ones... well... fillers... nothing much to say. BUT, "Garden of Dreams" is... magical. It is, in my view, the best thing TFK has ever composed as of now ! I feel it is a shame that they decided to 'cut' the song into 18 different tracks. Anyway, a suggestion (and warning) : do not play this using 'random' on your player ! Put this thing 'on' from track-1 and let it go for 1 hour ! Everything is built for getting more and more addicted to what you will hear develop. What you will get is a superb construction of music, super-melodic and filled with variations and feelings. After a few listenings, you will discover other things : the musical themes (not one but many) will be played differently, with other rythms and time-sigs, on other parts of the opus. If you like music... that's genious. And, everything during the 25-40 minute period develops into leading to the final climax. It is the best 'climax' prepared I've ever heared ! What a climax... You will feel thrills. I have listened to this many times, and (good indication) I still feel them ! A definite masterpiece ! It is in my Top-5 since the beginning of my 2000-listenings... only because of that song. What a band, creative. I saw them play the song 'live', in 2001, and... Wow ! An hour of magic. Imagine : you hear the beginning, and you applaud after 1 hour ! Ouf... Marvelous. A 5-perfect note.

"Flower Power", the fourth full-length release by Swedish prog rockers The Flower Kings, is a double-disc monster spanning over 141 minutes of music, and it is very much an album of two faces. One is sublime, the other is a disappointment.

Let's start with the positives. Disc 1 contains the beautiful multi-part suite "Garden of Dreams", which is unquestionably the high point of the album. At nearly one-hour long, this track stretches considerably the progressive muscles that the Swedes had already flexed on their previous record "Stardust We Are", which also contained some long-form compositions like the 25-minute title-track. But "Garden of Dreams" is on a whole different level. Divided into 18 sub-tracks, both instrumental and with vocals, this Bodin-Stolt composition is a phenomenal trip into a myriad of progressive rock styles, from jazz rock to blues to symphonic prog, from pastoral and ambient music to hard rock, to out-there full-blown prog extravaganza. These styles are all reinterpreted with personality and a modern feel, allowing The Flower Kings to move away from a mere "retro-prog" label and qualifying them as a modern progressive rock force. "Garden of Dreams" is extremely adventurous and exciting to listen to: it is cleverly composed, with themes and motifs that are reprised at multiple places throughout the piece, and it is played with panache and gusto. The music flows away seamlessly, blessed by that golden combination of complexity, depth and instant melodic accessibility that makes the hour of music pass away almost without one noticing it. It is a spellbinding piece of prog, and probably one of the crowning achievements in the band's career.

Then there is Disc 2 and the handful of tracks crammed at the end of Disc 1. I really struggle to find anything to my liking among these 13 tracks. Frankly, this collection of songs almost feels like the band decided to release all together the leftover tracks that they had accumulated in the recording sessions of the previous couple of albums. These songs continue to explore different styles of music, from pop-prog, to psychedelia, to symphonic prog rock. But the overall feel is much more chaotic and disjointed compared to the exquisite synthesis of prog styles on display in "Garden of Dreams". Most importantly, nearly all these tracks are melodically weak and fail to leave any lasting impression on me. I might just save "Corruption", which is the only song that has a vaguely memorable chorus, although it is really quite standard and nothing to write home about.

Overall, if "Flower Power" had been released as a single-disc album containing only "Garden of Dreams", I would easily rate this as one of the best Flower Kings' albums. The second disc, however, is truly a low point in the band's discography. The average of the two faces of this release is therefore a "mere" three stars. But please do not miss out on "Garden of Dreams", because it is absolutely amazing!

This is modern symphonic prog rock at its best. Disc 1 features the magnificent suite known as Garden of Dreams, which still stands as the best thing The Flower Kings have ever done. The 18-song suite takes us through many sounds and styles, eventually capping itself off with one of the greatest endings the progressive rock genre has ever had.

And the rest of the album is stellar as well. The last song on Disc 1, an excellent instrumental called Astral Dog, is a very chilling tune to relax to after having your mind blown by Garden of Dreams, and then its off to the fantastic Disc 2, which features a great mixture of ambient songs, short snappy rockers and a small handful of mini-epics.

Overall, this album is a magnificent achievement in the annals of symphonic prog rock, and I can safely call it The Flower Kings' masterpiece. Modern prog rock albums do not get any more essential than this.

Flower Power is a bit of a controversial album in The Flower Kings discography. It is the second double album in a row after only a year, and according to some, it contains the band's magnum opus piece "Garden of Dreams", but then also contains some of the band's weakest material. While I agree that the hour-long epic "Garden of Dreams" is possibly the band's greatest work, I do not agree that the other material is the weakest. In fact, I think the other material, which is mostly on the second disc, has some of the band's strongest material, and most of the other is underrated. This is also the first album, in my opinion, where the band had finally become a full, working unit, with everyone playing to the fullest, and feels like classic Flower Kings. Hasse Froberg's vocals are finally taking a much bigger role in the music than the previous 2 albums, and even though Jonas Reingold hadn't joined the band yet, bassist Michael Stolt does a fantastic job, and may have his best overall performance on this album. Jamie Salazar plays some of his most furious drumming here, as well.

But let's get on with disc 1. It contains the already mentioned "Garden of Dreams", with a nice coda piece following it in "Astral Dog". The epic is, however, quite epic. That word gets thrown around a bit much on this site, but GoD is the definition of 'epic'. The song goes through some of the most challenging and moving sections of music I've ever heard, not to mention from TFK. This is probably the most exciting from a keyboard perspective. Tomas Bodin is a bit more of a reserved player, but here, he lets loose on a few sections, and has some nice melody lines as well. The song gets a little heavier and rocks out for a little bit before moving into the darkest moment on this album. A brooding, almost scary section, that reminds me the Dark Ages for some reason, I don't know. It eventually returns to a more uplifting section, as you can feel the end is near. The grand finale is beautiful, and has nearly moved me to tears on more than one occasion. The epic is followed by the coda piece, "Astral Dog", which is mostly a Roine guitar solo in the vein of Frank Zappa. Perfect end to a perfect disc of music.

That, alone, would be a 5 star album. But the band has an entire second disc of music, longer than the first disc.

The second disc contains great to excellent songs some highlights are:

Deaf Dumb & Blind opens up disc 2. This is another TFK classic, Some great symphonic moments, with a touch of a middle-eastern vibe. Stupid Girl is alright, a little too light, but goes into a fusion-type improv section, with a little more Zappa influence at the end. Corruption is a classic 90s TFK hard rock tune, with a good chorus, excellent organ, and great solos from Roine. This is followed by a Bodin atmospheric piece, which is nice, maybe too long, but nice. Nothing special.

Next song is Psychedelic Postcard, and this may be one of the band's most underrated songs. It almost reminds me of Zappa's Mothers of Invention from the 60s, with that high pitched vocal technique, and some of the keyboard sounds; but the music is mostly symphonic prog. The song eventually makes it way to the best part of the song, the climax if you will, and is one of the band's most uplifting vocal sections. This song should be one of the band's signature tunes. This is seriously one of their best songs, a little wacky though.

Magic Pie is next. seen as one of their weaker songs in the band's catalog. I never understood this. I mean, it's not the greatest song they ever made, but it's got some real catchy vocals and the chorus is beautiful.

The album ends with Afterlife, which is mostly a reprise of a couple of themes from Garden of Dreams, to round off the album (in case you forgot you were listening to the same album, hehe).

If you're a symphonic prog fan, and do not have this album, you'll be doing yourself a big favor by getting this. Just disc 1 alone is worth the price of admission, as it truly is one of the greatest pieces of progressive rock you'll ever hear.

Like most of their albums, the Flower Kings has a varied style throughout the album. Never a band to be stuck in a rut, they experiment with sounds and styles. But what makes this album a masterpiece is the almost full hour long composition, Garden of Dreams. This piece is one of the most amazing pieces of music I've ever heard. Meant to be a musical picture of what goes on in dreamland, this piece explores many varied musical soundscapes. The differences between the highs and lows of this piece are astounding and it is a musical journey like no other.

Flower Power is the second double album from TFK and is also their longest at a whopping 2 hours and 20 minutes. Listening to this in one sitting is definitely a task. What doesn't help, though, is like the previous album Stardust We Are, Flower Power also suffers from filler material. This time around, it is even worse, with the second disc almost entirely containing filler songs.

The first disc, however, is absolutely amazing and is one of The Flower King's greatest achievements. 'The Garden of Dreams' (10/10) is an hour long song (though I consider it a suite a la side two of Abbey Road) which explores areas not touched by the Flower Kings before, while also revisiting the classic TFK sound.

The suite does a great job of blending together more aggressive and upbeat songs like 'Attack of the Monster Briefcase,' 'Mr. Hope Goes to Wall Street,' and Don't Let the d'Evil In' with the slower and more atmospheric songs like 'Did I Tell You,' or the title track. Also, there is a constant Pink Floyd vibe throughout the album, especially in the song 'Indian Summer.'

The rest of disc one consists of two of those pointless "segue" tracks TFK likes to do so much. It is funny to note though that Ikea By Night is the only song in the discography solely credited to the drummer Jaime Salazar.

The last song of disc one, 'Astral Dog,' (8/10) is a definite keeper. It is an instrumental and is pretty much an 8-minute jam. For some reason I really like the song; it has some of Roine's signature distorted guitar sound along with some chunky bass lines.

The second disc starts with the amazing Deaf, Numb, and Blind. (10/10) The track has plenty of interesting melodies and dramatic mood changes and is easily the highlight of disc two.

Unfortunately, the rest of disc two is lesser material or simply filler. 'Stupid Girl' (6/10) is melodic and has some great vocal lines from Roine Stolt.

'Corruption' (4/10) is mostly uninteresting but does have a few good points, especially the catchy chorus.

'Power of Kindness' (5/10) is a nice reprise of a theme in the Garden of Dreams played by Bodin on the organ.

'Psychedelic Postcard' (5/10) is a nice driven track with some interesting vocals.

The rest of the tracks are bonus track material and I usually don't make it past these anyway, but include 'Hudson River Sirens Call 1998,' (1/10) 'Magic Pie,' (2/10) Painter, (3/10) 'Calling Home,' (3/10) and 'Afterlife' (2/10)

Overall, I could say about this album the same exact thing I said about Stardust We Are. The album contains some amazing material and then some blatant filler. Though the album could have been limited to Garden of Dreams and I would have been content.

6/10

Rate 10/10 When I heard for the first time the flowers king I listened the track "astral dog". at once to the first notes I understood the importance of the track and I immediately fell in love of it. the whole CD is a concept album. the first track "the garden of dream " is a musical masterpiece. A track long 59 minutes It had never happened me. nevertheless the track slips away fast, without dead points without tired moments. Sonorities are always bright and I don't deny that probably it is the CD in which he makes reference to the sonorities typical of the Pinks Floyd. more Pinks Floyd of the Pink Floyd. in other passages there are instead some clear references to the Yes as "psychedelic post card." also the according to CD has some memorable tracks as the classic and space sound as " after life " and "puzzle" a masterpiece of the progressive rock an inspired work and transcendent. Of all the CD of the Flowers King according to my opinion is the best and the fact surprises me that the best is not considered of all work of the flowers king. I consider it in the first tops 10 of the past century.

This is in every way an interesting record. It is totally full of music and parts of it are awesome. I have to warm you beacuse the music needs time to be understood. There's so plenty of music minutes and every song needs to be heard some times before you judge it. "Flowerpower" from 1999 is The Flower Kings' fourth studio album, done two years after their third. It contains more than two hours of music and there, we you see that, immediately you wonder if the quality could be as great as you want to expect.

"Flowerpower" is a record of a lot of music, definitely much good tunes and wonderous compositions, but in some way there's is too much of it, the quality falls under the quantity. The music is very appealing to me and I guess this could grow but I feel that the parts, especially in "The Garden of Dreams" aren't coherent enough. That composition did I hear on the live record "Meet the Flower Kings" from 2003. There it was amazing, so vivid and amazing. Here it unfortunately was like a lot of separate parts quite randomly put together to a suite. Still I find it appealing and absolutely worth praise.

Instead I prefer the second CD with more separated songs where "Deaf, Numb and Blind" stands out as a lovely symphonic track just as "Magic Pie". Also "Psychadelic Postcard" appeals to me as special in many ways. I found the second CD more varied to. This band, made up by Roine Stolt(guitar, voice, keyboards), Tomas Bodin(keyboards), Hasse Fröberg(vocals), Michael Stolt(bass), Jaime Salazar(drums) and Hasse Bruniusson(percussion) has great talent and abilities to make interesting music. The music aren't directly acquirable but I recommend you to try it, at least two times. I will give Flower Power three stars today!

1998 was another busy year for The Flower Kings.Roine Stolt released his second solo album ''Hydrphonia'', while the press was still talking about an emerging monster, writing and producing extremely good music at high rates.For the first time the band was preparing to travel to the States and the compilation ''Scanning the greenhouse'' was released to on Avalon as a taste for what the audience would deal with.The Flower Kings played at the 98' Progfest, but still kept writing music in a prolific way for a fourth release before the end of the millenium.''Flower power'' was released in 1999, the first album of the band to be released in four different countries: Sweden, USA, Germany and Japan.

Needless to say this was another 2-CD effort by The Flower Kings, the rate of producing music by Stolt was reaching shocking levels.This album is apparently known for containing one of the longest prog pieces ever recorded, the 59-min. ''Garden of dreams''.The Flower Kings' sound was always versatile, although fairly grounded in 70's Classic Prog, and this piece sees the band moving away from the strict symphonic orientations of the previous releases.While the music is always melodic, sophisticated and fairly symphonic with evident CAMEL, KAIPA and GENESIS influences, the track's length allowed Stolt to experiment with different styles and deliver as many as moods possible, as a result ''Garden of dreams'' contains certain segments with a strong jazzy flavor, some more Electronic-showered lines and even some surprising bluesy solos, prooving why Stolt is regarded one of the best guitarists in the league.On the other hand there are tons of proggy, complex themes with symphonic keyboard flashes and more striking guitar tunes over sentimental vocals to keep things going for the traditional prog listener.The final feeling is mixed, definitely the musicianship is great and almost flawless, but the display of so many styles hurts the track's consistency and overall value.Seeing this as separate pieces will definitely increase the general listening pleasure.

CD one closes with a typical instrumental Flower Kings piece ''Astral dog'', but CD 2 is the definitely winner here, containing a few full-blown prog epics along with some shorter tracks, where the style of the band becomes instantly recognizable.Compositions with great melodies, decent singing lines and a collection of grandiose textures and complicated twists and turns in the vein of 70's Prog, always flavored by a modern production and sound.Stolt's guitar work remains a highlight and Bodin had already become a hot name among Prog keyboardists.Laid-back electroacoustic instrumentals, covered by pompous symphonic orchestrations and touches of a melodious side, creating monumental and trully enjoyable Progressive Rock.They still find some space for rockin' parts and a bit of a jamming mood among the elaborate arrangements, which is always a good thing in my books, if placed and performed well.Echoes of YES, GENESIS, CAMEL and a maybe even a slight Canterbury/jazzy feel are the guiding lines of ''Flower power'' second part.

Rating comes hard.The very long epic is good, but not always great with often a very loose approach, the second part of the album sees The Flower Kings in a creative orgasm, featuring rich and convincing arrangements.Strongly rcommended to say the least, the best moments of the album belong among the best of 90's Prog as well...3.5 stars.

One of the better Flower Kings albums, in great part due to the tremendous epic, "Garden of Dreams"--one of my top five epics from the 1990s. The musicianship, as always, is superlative, the song constructs, as usual, sometimes confusing and overly oblique, sometimes simple and straightforward (depending on Roine/the band's leanings toward YES, KING CRIMSON, or GENESIS), and the production great, but 141 minutes of listening is a lot to demand of an audience.

- Disc One "Garden of Dreams" (114.75/120) "Astral Dog" (8:00) nice jazz fusion slow jam-groove, kind of mellow Zappa (14/15) Disc Two "Deaf, Numb and Blind" (17/20) "Stupid Girl" (6:49) trip hoppy start; very 80s; could've been a hit then?especially with the Peter Frampton electric guitar. (13.75/15) "Corruption (5:55) organ. Uriah Heep comes to mind. (7.75/10) "Power of Kindness" (4:25) funeral organ, solo. FOCUS-like. (8.25/10) "Psychedelic Postcard" (9:50) YES. Weird muted vocal. Nice instrumental midsection. (16.5/20) "Hudson River Sirens Call 1998" (4:20) slide guitar solo over slow-burn bass and distant drums. Fem soprano singing operatic vocalize in background. Effective atmosphere and mood. (9.25/10) "Magic Pie" (8:19) acoustic 12-string & harpsichord w/nice vocal from Hasse Fröberg. GENESIS-like rock ballad. (17.75/20) "Painter" (6:45) repeat of old themes in rock power ballad form. (12.75/15) "Calling Home" (16.75/20) "Afterlife" (4:34) tron, organ, military drumming instrumental, builds and builds to crescendo and then falls to simple Moog. (8.75/10)

A-/five stars; a minor masterpiece of progressive rock music.

Mixed, but Iconic

TFK was creatively peaking around this time. Here is another double-CD release, right after a previous one (Stardust We Are). Roine Stolt (and Thomas Bodin) sure were productive song writers! Unlike other bands where quantity is usually traded off with quality, the opposite seems to be the case with TFK. When they are writing a lot of songs in a short space of time, they tend to be better quality! And prolific they were. The former album (Stardust We Are) was 130 minutes. This album, only a year later, is 140 minutes long. That makes 270 minutes, or the equivalent of about 7 normal-length vinyl albums (!). (And Roine Stolt recorded his Hydrophonia album around this time too). One criticism I have of TFK is that their albums are too long, and usually contain a couple of tunes that would have been better left off, and this one is no exception. Saying this, one cannot help but marvel that the sheer productivity here, and the vast majority (90 percent) is excellent.

As for the music, this album contains the hour-long (!) epic "Garden of Dreams". While I prefer the live version on 'Meet the Flower Kings' to this version (the live version is 45 minutes, as opposed to an hour, but has longer solos), one can't deny there is some great music here. It clearly took a lot of work to compose and record this music! After the epic, CD1 ends with a short drum solo ("IKEA by Night") and a great instrumental built around a guitar solo, reminding me of some of Zappa's guitar-based work ("Astral Dog"). CD2 is like a different album, with mostly shorter pieces, but some great music. "Deaf, Numb and Blind", which opens CD2, is among the best TFK songs, as is the second-last tune "Calling Home". Those two add up to 22 minutes, and provide the heights on this album. In between are a mixed collection. "Psychedelic Postcard"/"Hudson River Sirens Call" is really very good, as is "Painter". "Afterlife" is also great - a wrap-up of Garden of Dreams which ends the album both on a high note, and by reminding the listener of that epic. However, I can't listen to "Stupid Girl", and both "Corruption" and "The power of Kindness" (an organ mirror of one of the themes in "Garden of Dreams") are just OK and (to my ears, along with the decent but entirely different "Magic Pie") break up the flow of this CD. There are many great musical sections though, and if CD2 had involved "only" 45 minutes of the best pieces, it would have flowed exceptionally well. On balance, I give this album 8.8 out of 10 on my 10-point scale, which translates to high 4 PA stars. (Notably, while they are very different albums, this just happens to be the same rating I give to Stardust We Are. Two great double-CD albums back to back).

The Flower Kings are definitely one of the more interesting retro prog bands out there for their ability to expertly craft instrumental sections that take the listener on a journey with amazingly vivid imagery being painted with each sweeping section of music, creating some truly beautiful music. Even so, I've got to say that this album is entirely baffling to me, given how this album is over 2 hours long, yet almost entirely enjoyable from front to back, despite the fact that I couldn't really see a 2 hour long symphonic prog album being anything other than an exhausting experience. What this album does so well in order to make it as enjoyable as it is is how the songwriting has once again been refined and consistency feels far more focused upon, fixing the biggest flaw I found Stardust We Are had, as this album feels as if the majority of the tracks actually have a place.

The album is split into 2 halves, with the first half primarily being taken up by the hour long epic, Garden of Dreams, a piece as grandiose as one would expect from an hour long prog epic, and definitely the most impressive, ambitious song here, even if it can feel a bit inconsistent at points. The first 10 minutes or so that include Dawn, Simple Song and Business Vamp are absolutely excellent, containing a lovely buildup into beautiful, pastoral acoustic guitar before building upon the more fantasy oriented side of their sound, exceptional synths forming the basis of this amazing sound thus far, with Roine Stolt's guitar work further contributing to the quality, being technical, but not enough to become overbearing or distracting. Despite the near perfection of this first stretch of the epic, it's really after this where things get so interesting, with a somewhat darker, more emotionally hearfelt edge to sections like All You Can Save. This is accentuated by the increase of guitar prominence, which is definitely the most emotive aspect to the band's sound overall, and is much more versatile in what imagery it can create compared to the largely fantastical sound of the keyboard. I also love how the band clearly isn't against throwing in some more fun sections into the mix to spice things up without derailing all of the momentum that's being made, as these faster, looser parts often come right before some sort of massive buildup. Of course, when I'm talking about massive buildup, I'm talking about the leadup to one of the most satisfying moments in the band's entire discography, Don't Let The D'evil In, the lush orchestrations making way for surprisingly heavy guitar work in such a perfect climax to the previous few sections' trajectory. It's absolutely how wild this section sounds without sounding entirely out of place, yet going as far as to have a defined riff and everything, sounding like another part of the 2 Judas songs on the band's first 2 albums, except even more amazingly intense through and through. What impresses me more than this is how everything manages to continue smoothly after this point despite the stark drop in intensity, falling back onto the grandiose melodies that still remind me somewhat of a pantomime.

This second half is where I feel like things begin loosing traction as well however, as while there are some really cool experiments with more ambient and understated music, it's also where the more traditional parts often lack the same kind of magic as what was found early on. While I believe this, I must also make sure to not neglect mentioning how absolutely incredible the conclusion to the song is, being so immensely powerful all across the board, the emotional vocals being nothing short of absolutely breathtaking as all elements of the band display the culmintation of the last 55 minutes nothing short of flawlessly, both making everythin beforehand that much more significant, and reeling me back in after the album began to lose me, the first of many cases in which this happens on the album as a whole. Side one also includes the great instrumental Astral Dog, which isn't anywhere near as special as what just came before, but nonetheless signifies the fact that the second half will be full of shorter, more digestable tracks.

I do personally find the second half of this album to be more or less equal to the first in terms of quality, with some clear highlights throughout. Deaf Numb and Blind starts things off very nicely with another lengthy epic, although this time only 11 minutes, but packing it with pure exellence, still having a nice balance between technicality and beauty, especially near the end where everything becomes extremely dense. I like how there is some sort of variety within the many songs here, as it is probably part of the reason why I am able to enjoy this album despite so much being seemingly against it. Psychedelic Postcard is the biggest example of this, as while it's not a big change, the trippier nature of it definitely is an interesting change from most of the album, the fuzzy sound that many elements have in plaes providing some really unique characteristics to it in the grand scheme of the band's output. I also find myself enjoying some other songs such as Corruption, with it's cool guitar sections and the same darker atmosphere underpinned by the theatrics of the project. One final song I would be remiss to neglect is the amazingly beautiful Painter that showcases the identity of the band as a whole extremely well without taking an exceedigly long time to do so.

Overall, I find it highly unnexpected that I ended up enjoying this album so thoroughly, but in the end, that's exactly what I did. I do still believe that this album could have been cut down a bit, but it's a far less egregious issue than on Stardust We Are, as the majority of this feels unlike filler. In terms of reinventing themselves, this album does literally nothing, but instead greatly refines the preexisting identity of the band to create a highly memorable, beautiful album that highlights the best aspects of prog, even if it does indulge on the excess that makes up one of its worst aspects in many cases. Definitely not the first place I'd send people when recommending this band due to its immense length, but it's definitely a great album, especially for the great Garden Of Dreams, which is almost completely worthy of its ridiculous length, although I'd cut it back by about 10 minutes.

Best tracks: Garden of Dreams, Deaf, Numb and Blind, Corruption, Painter

Weakest tracks: Power of Kindness, Hudson Rivers Siren Call 1998, Calling Home

Verdict: Despite being a 2 hour block of symphonic retro prog, I found this album to be surprisingly consistent in its engagement. If you can accept the fact that this album is needlessly excessive in many aspects and enjoy that sort of stuff, I think that you could enjoy this album quite a bit, especially for Garden of Dreams.

One might call Flower Power the start of the "no editing" phase of The Flower Kings. Whilst their first two albums (or three albums, if you include Roine Stolt's original The Flower King solo album which brought the project together) were single-disc affairs, Stardust We Are risked stretching out to two discs and by and large succeeded. This seems to have persuaded the band that the more music they could put on a release, the better - hence Flower Power ends up similarly packed.

The Kings seem to have backed off on this approach in later years - with many subsequent studio albums from the mid-2000s onwards either sticking to one CD in length or, if they had the material, sticking the weaker stuff on a bonus CD rather than packaging it in with the main album. At this point, however, they seem to have been confident that they'd be able to do another 130 minute-plus album hot on the heels of their previous one.

The album leads off with the monster epic Garden of Dreams, an almost hour-long track. This is fairly slow in its early sections, but on the whole I think it's worth it: it uses its massive running time to allow itself to build up gradually, and the Kings' compositional style is diverse and wide-ranging enough that whilst there's obviously themes running through the entire thing they can pack a fairly extensive sonic universe into that one song alone.

To be honest, with prog audiences being used to concept albums where the musical themes all run together - think of Dark Side of the Moon, think of Misplaced Childhood, think of Thick As a Brick for crying out loud - the Kings could have probably just said "that's it, that's the album" and just released Garden of Dreams as a one-disc affair, and I think if they had it'd be regarded as a masterpiece, a journey into symphonic prog realms which, unlike far too many retro- prog acts, keeps in mind the full range of sounds and influences that the classic prog acts of the 1970s truly drew on, and able to incorporate influences ranging from Yes to Zappa in their palette.

The remaining 75 minutes of the album consists of various other musical experiments, ranging from proto-prog psychedelia (the Zappa-ish Psychedelic Postcard) to space rock (Hudson River Sirens Call 1998 could almost, if the vocals on it were less operatic, be an early Porcupine Tree piece) and taking various diversions along the way.

I can see why the Flower Kings gathered a loyal following in the late 1990s - it was a time when it was harder to discover new prog bands than it is today, and InsideOut had pretty decent reach with its distribution, and in an era when many fans were feeling starved for prog a two hour plus album would have felt like an embarrassment of riches. Nonetheless, there are times when less is more, and Flower Power illustrates that. Garden of Dreams by itself would be in contention for five stars, or a 50-minute condensation of the best bits of the non-Garden of Dreams songs would be in the running for a similar grade, but as it is I have to give the whole package four stars. If you're a prog fan, there's a lot to like here, but you may find you rarely listen to the whole thing all the way through.

'Flower Power' is a double-disc album from The Flower Kings, which is a regular occurrence for this band. The first disc is mostly comprised of a nearly one-hour-long epic composition entitled "Garden of Dreams," and the second disc consists of "shorter" songs. I say "shorter" in quotations because the songs on the second disc are still quite lengthy with two tracks being over eleven minutes in duration.

"Garden of Dreams" is one of the greatest pieces from The Flower Kings. I love the way Tomas Bodin arranged the piece, as there are themes heard in the beginning that reprise towards the end. There are odd time signatures galore throughout the piece, especially the use of 5/8, which I adore. Each section flows into each other seamlessly and takes the listener on an epic journey. The guitar solo at the end of "All You Can Save" which leads into "Attack of the Monster Briefcase" is superb. Tomas Bodin's keyboard work on "Mr. Hope Goes to Wall Street" is excellent and borders on jazz fusion. The "Garden of Dreams" section has what I believe to be a synthesized orchestra, giving this part of the piece a magical quality. The band rocks out on "Don't Let the d'Evil In," and "Love Is the Word" contains interesting three-part vocal harmonies. "There's No Such Night" is the emotional midpoint of the composition with Roine Stolt's passionate vocals. Roine Stolt isn't my favorite singer in the world, but his vocals on "Garden of Dreams" are his best ever in my opinion. "The Mean Machine," "Dungeon of the Deep," and "Indian Summer" are the most subdued and instrumentally scarce moments of "Garden of Dreams," which is needed after all the intense music that preceded it. The track gains energy on "Sunny Lane," which is a pleasant song with great Roine Stolt guitar playing. The theme that was introduced during "Attack of the Monster Briefcase" is brought back and makes me emotional when I hear it. The melody and chords are simple, but that's what makes it beautiful. "Gardens Revisited" and "Shadowland" also reprise themes heard earlier in the piece, and lead us to the final section, "The Final Deal," which is transcendent. Roine Stolt's vocal performance moves me to tears and the song ends with a beautiful ambience.

The band decided to place the two shortest songs on the album after the longest track as a joke I presume. "Captain Capstan" and "Ikea By Night" are forty-five seconds and four seconds, respectively. "Ikea By Night" is a rapid Jaime Salazar drum fill that leads into the final track of the first disc, "Astral Dog." This song is a jazz fusion-inspired piece that features excellent lead guitar from Mr. Stolt.

The second disc opens with "Deaf, Numb, and Blind" which has a middle eastern flavor to the music. "Stupid Girl" is a nice pop song that I enjoy. "Corruption" contains interesting organ and overall is a great rock song. "Power of Kindness" reprises themes heard from "Garden of Dreams," and is a pleasant Tomas Bodin keyboard instrumental. "Psychedelic Postcard" is, as the title describes, psychedelic. "Hudson River Sirens Call 1998" is an atmospheric song with choral voices. The next three tracks are underrated Flower Kings songs, in my opinion. "Magic Pie" is a Hasse Fröberg piece, and is genuinely great. I love his vocals, and the song doesn't feel as long as its duration which is eight minutes. "Painter" is my favorite song on the second disc and one of my favorite Flower Kings songs. The chorus is heavenly with the multilayered vocal harmonies. "Calling Home" is another favorite of mine that I don't think gets enough recognition for being a great song. The song at its core is a pop song but it's wearing a prog costume. Sure, it's eleven minutes long and has an atypical structure, but like most Flower Kings songs, the music is catchy and memorable.

In conclusion, "Flower Power" is an excellent album to follow the masterpiece that is "Stardust We Are." If I were to be fussy when contemplating this album through a critical lens, the first disc of the album does overshadow the second disc a bit. The second disc doesn't reach the same high points that were reached on the first disc with "Garden of Dreams." Nevertheless, there are still many great songs and moments on the second disc that, when isolated, are exceptional. If the album was restructured so that the first and second disc were swapped so that "Garden of Dreams" ended the album, maybe I would give it five stars instead of four and a half rounded down.