Flower Kings Appreciation Thread

Originally posted by progrules Originally posted by cacho Guys! Karmakanic's Who's the Boss in the Factory? arrived today, and it's fantastic!!!!!! Highly recomended for all of you here. A mix of the dark mood and chords of The Tangent and TFK's stunning melody and epicness.   I suggest you do the review then my friend. And please bring in another 5 starrating for it. I'm getting sick and tired of all those prog reviewers saying it's such a great album and still give it 4 (ONLY 4 that is) !!    The average rating is way too low for this masterpiece.

I do love some of the songs (especially Send a Message from the Heart) but I simply can't give it 5 stars. It isn't a "masterpiece" of prog nor is it "essential." I don't think it should ever go below 4 stars.

OK.  Inspired by Henk's (progrules) monumental top 50, here's my personal Flower Kings top 25, culled from the eight albums I have.  Can you tell which are the 2 I've not got .

Wow!!  So many posts this weekend  to all of you.

Edited by Roj M30 - March 16 2009 at 04:37

Originally posted by progrules Spot on post once more ! You have the gift to make every word count. I don't think the qualification newbie suits you, dude. Just keep sending in the posts (especially on this great thread ) and you'll be a groupie and senior in no time.

I might be a newbie on here but I'm a right old fart on the Genesis and Spock's Beard forums

Thanks for your kind words though and I look forward to plenty more TFK chat in this thread for months to come.

Have a look at how long the TFK threads have been going on the Genesis forums

Originally posted by cacho Guys! Karmakanic's Who's the Boss in the Factory? arrived today, and it's fantastic!!!!!! Highly recomended for all of you here. A mix of the dark mood and chords of The Tangent and TFK's stunning melody and epicness.

Originally posted by Nov Originally posted by progrules Just another interesting thought. I recently shared my thoughts with Roj about Monsters & Men but just the other day another great song came to mind: Big Puzzle. Just have another listen to the part from 2:10 till 6:10. These must be amongst the best composed and executed minutes of music in history. How can anyone invent such brilliant stuff ? Only a genius I guess. One of the many reasons I'm in love with this band. Anyone that feels the same way about this song ? I love Big Puzzle To me it's one of TFK's very best tracks and the section you mention is just pure prog glory and right up there with anythingthat Yes or Genesis have produced (and I grew up with those bands). I'm currently listening to "Theme For A Hero" and it's glorious. This band should be massive.

Originally posted by cacho Guys! Karmakanic's Who's the Boss in the Factory? arrived today, and it's fantastic!!!!!! Highly recomended for all of you here. A mix of the dark mood and chords of The Tangent and TFK's stunning melody and epicness.

 I agree ,Excellent record

I don't know, but there's something I don't like about The Flower Kings. Sometimes they rock, but other times they get into cheesy stuff that almost sounds like a parody of prog-rock.

Originally posted by progrules   Good post Roland ! There are some meaningful and sharp points you are making here but that has also to do with me agreeing with you of course (about the70's point) . There's just one thing I do not completely agree with. Contrary to you I don't dislike Yes. But I do very well understand what you mean. I think Yes just made a (very) few very good songs during their large discography. To me those are the incredible Gates of Delirium and Close to the Edge. And I can only add  Awaken, Yours is no disgrace, Starship Trooper and And you and I to them as very good songs. The rest I don't really care about in fact. And then to think that many people dare to maintain that TFK is just a Yes-rip off band. I get so angry when I read such stupid nonsense . All facts considered Yes gets nowhere near TFK in my opinion. I'd better watch out now or it will be . Yes is sacred to many     I really like these talks about TFK compared to the ultimate greats on PA. I wanted to do this for a long time ! Thanks guys

Thanks PR,

And it's not that I dislike them, I just have a similar stance towards them as you do with Genesis, utmost respect, just can't really get into them and think they're over rated.  Though I'm creating a playlist with the songs that you recommend, well everything except Awaken.  I don't seem to have that song, which album if you know off the top of your head?

My very first FK impression was that they were a Yes imitator, the first CD that I picked up by them was Retropolis with the very Yeslike "There is More to this World".  That didn't bother me cause I still enjoyed the song, enough to explore more.  I picked up Stardust next and it was history from there.

I would hardly call them a Yes rip-off, frankly, I think they're far better.  On a musician by musician basis, the only Yes member that I'd take is Rick Wakeman.  I prefer Stolt over Howe. 

I like the Stolt / Froeberg combination better than Anderson on vocals.  I know this one would be unpopular but I think Anderson's voice is a little too pristine.  Very beautiful and clear though not quite as gritty as I'd like.

I don't care for their rhythm section, Squire and Bruford don't strike me as a rhythm section as much as competing soloists.  Even if I did like Chris Squire's style, Jonas Reingold blows him away from pure feel.  The last couple of minutes in 'The Devil's Playground' is some of the most compelling bass work that I've heard in quite a while.

Wakeman is fantastic, Bodin is great as well, I just think that Rick Wakeman wins on that one.

In all fairness, the Genesis comparison...give me Banks, Collins, Gabriel, Reingold and Stolt.

Gotta run or I'd probably keep going...

Peace

Originally posted by Roland113 Originally posted by progrules Originally posted by Roland113 I'm like Nov in that it was hard for me to even consider putting a band on the same plane as Genesis, but The Flower Kings have reached that status in my mind.  My top five does include Frost*, IQ and Spock's Beard as well, but the last three are far below Genesis and The Flower Kings.   Interesting addition this. Which are the other four top bands. Well, in my personal biography you can read these are Dream Theater(+LTE), Symphony X, Collage/Satellite and Clepsydra and it will be that way for a long time to come because these are 4 (6) other bands that are in my blood and bones. The only thing they have in common with TFK is the production of teriffic melodic compositions. It's just that TFK does this best of them all ! TFK is on a lonesome extremely high level that's beyond everyone else's reach. And there's of course Pendragon but they only made two excellent albums (out of 10). About Genesis: I have the outmost respect for them but in the end I feel they are a bit overrated and of course far less than TFK. I'm a bit of an outcast on this site because my big love is not with the seventies era . Progrules, I understand what you mean, personally, I love Genesis but think that both Yes and King Crimson are terribly overrated.  King Crimson is just a little too out there on many of their albums, I picked up Lark's Tongue and I just can't get the whole way through it . Yes (along with Marillion) is a slightly different story, I can't get into them and I can't figure out why.  Everything says that I should, there's kind of a "If you like Genesis then you should like Yes" relationship for many, but I just don't like their music.  Similar thing with Marillion, "If you like Genesis and IQ you should like Marillion."  I've tried, they just don't quite do it for me. Regarding being an outcast because you aren't in love with the 70's, I feel your pain.  I refer to them as the "70's forever" crowd.  At one point, someone posted the quote "All of the good music has already been written" which I thought was a sadly arrogant stance and a ludricas statement in general. As a collection, I prefer the newer groups over the older groups.  If I had to do a top ten, I'd add Dream Theater, Peter Gabriel, Riverside then pick two out of Satellite, Porcupine Tree, Siege's Even, Pain of Salvation, Singularity and Sylvan.  (Speaking if which, if you haven't heard Singularity, I highly recommend them)  Anyways, my point, with the exception of Peter Gabriel and Genesis, I generally prefer the modern prog scene over the 70's.