STARDUST WE ARE

Had the Flower Kings exercised a touch more restraint and trimmed this back to a single album, this might have been their first five-star album, since for a good stretch of Stardust We Are the Kings have well and truly hit their stride, presenting a prog style steeped in a range of 1970s influences but not quite fully sounding like any one of them. They'd always taken in influences ranging from Zappa to Yes, but they hadn't previously felt as well-balanced as they do here.

However, the album doesn't get that fifth star simply because the Flower Kings went a touch too self-indulgent, not exercising enough editorial rigour to fully sort the wheat from the chaff. Cranking all the prog dials to 11 and being more excessive than anyone else is part of the game plan here, I suppose, but even so I think stretching this to a double album was somewhat to its detriment.