STARDUST WE ARE

"Stardust We Are" is easily a four star album and worthy of consideration of a full five stars, but not quite. While containing some of The Flower King's, arguably, most memorable tracks the length of the total package actually detracts enough to knock it down to only four stars.

"Stardust We Are", the song, is kind of a mini version of the album itself in that it's at first great, then at some point you're thinking to yourself that "I'm going to keep listening to it just to get through it". It's an amazing song, wonderful in all aspects, by twenty minutes into the song, it's accomplished it's task, it's peaked it was an amazing experience. Then it keeps going . . . and going . . . the harpsichord Baroque thing and everything after that is really just trying to make sure there is no empty space on the CD.

In an analogous theme, the album peaks at about The Merrygoround, everything from there on to Stardust is more of a struggle to get through. Don't get me wrong, the songs themselves are all great, it's just more of the same. This album would have been a five star album if it had about 30 minutes less music on it.

With all of that being said, my personal highlights include "Stardust We Are", "In the Eyes of the World", and "Poor Mr. Rain's Ordinary Guitar". In addition, "Just This Once" is probably my favorite song on the album, though only after removing the first thirty seconds or so, thus eliminating the grating siren bit that ruins an otherwise wonderful song.

Lowlights include the first thirty seconds of "Just This Once", the last five minutes of "Stardust We Are" and the last four minutes of "Compassion".

In summary, it's a great album though difficult to listen to in one sitting.