FLOWER POWER

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.