BANKS OF EDEN

As a long time fan of The Flower Kings, it took a long, long time too to write this review (no pun intended). After the masterpiece that was The Sum Of No Evil (2007), the band took a five year lapse before releasing a follow up (an incredible amount of time in Flower Kings terms). Officially it is too one of their shortest works clicking at "just" the 53:20 mark, although most versions do have an "bonus" CD with extra 22 minutes of recorded music. In other words, it all could fit perfectly a single CD and the results could be better (see below).

Banks of Eden did not excited me at all at the time, I must admit. Maybe I was expecting too much after the terrific previous one. And I never did understand the high ratings it got on PA. Perhaps Warthur is right: the long time probably excited the other reviewers for the fact that the band came back after a long spell and they were all missing those guys, so they would be in a forgiving mood. Maybe, I don´t know. Certainly I was not convinced by the opener, the massive 25 minute plus opus Numbers. Unlike many other giant musical pieces TFK produced before (Stardust We Are, Garden If Dreams or The Truth Will Set You Free) this one is quite boring and take a long (that word again!) time to sink in. And even then, it still leaves the feeling of being overstretched and not exactly convincing as a whole. I have the feeling that this is what makes this CD much less striking, because the remaining tunes are very good. And the "bonus" material does have some stronger performances than the "official" ones - in terms of passion and fire at least - even if they are more straightforward rocking than the rest. Fireghosts and LolInes specially are quite moving and powerful. One thing that I miss is the presence of percussionist Hasse Bruniusson and saxophonist Ulf Wallander. Production is, as usual, top notch.

Rating: it was also very difficult to rate Banks Of Eden. Compared to their best albums, this is a lesser work. However, it is still a lot better than most of what you get on the market nowadays. So the 3 star rating must be seen as evidence of relative loss of songwriting quality compared to what they do best, specially to their previous The Sum Of No Evil. Still it´s a worth release from a band that is one of the best prog acts to emerge from the 90´s and beyond.