STARDUST WE ARE

Flower kings fans of course who have that album missing in their collections. This is definitely one of their best if not their best.

Even still I am not sure this is the easiest Flower Kings album to start with; any symphonic prog or prog fans in general will seriously enjoy this albums. The Flower Kings have a lot talent and their own personality and are not just copying their 70's ancestors such as Yes as some of their detractors would say.

What do we have here?

The first cd is almost perfect expect the last track 'Compassion' Why did they had to include this track? The 15 minutes of instrumentals music 'The Man Who Walked With Kings' and 'Circus Braimstone' is an amazing moments of music. On 'Circus Braimstome' the band proves they can go further that the borders of symph-prog. Two other great tracks: 'In The Eye Of The World' and the emotional and symphonic ' Church Of Your Heart'

The second cd is slightly weaker than the first but only slightly. The band appears tired on some tracks that drags on a bit ('Don Of The Universe') or looks out of context ('Different people' 'Kingdom of Lies 'Ghost Of The Red Cloud'). However the best track of the albums still remain on this one this is 'Stardust We Are' a classic prog suite and one of the best suite ever made in the 90's. Another highlights of cd2 would be 'The Merrygoround' and 'The End Of Innocence' which reminds me a lot of the first part of 'Starless' from King Crimson' as much as for the atmosphere than the voice of Roine Stolt very close to the one of John Wetton.

Over the all album, the short tracks played mostly by Tomas Bodin are to be mentioned as well for their great melodies and welcome interlude during the flood of music.

Why I rate it 4 stars:

There is definitely even great material here to justify a double albums, but some weaker tracks previously mentioned should have been left out. If so, this albums would easily be a 5 star albums and would easily compete with the classic opus of the 70's. Yes this opus would have gain being shorter but again those weaker tracks represent only around 20 minutes out of 2h15 of fantastic music and the album can pretend being a key album of rock progressif.

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