FLOWER POWER

Disc 1: They really insist to some concept, connecting all those songs together. A normal concept album should have some concept, yeah? What is that here? Is there a story? There isnt. Some extremely banal lyrics about lost love, then about a yuppie going to Wall Street???, then references to some soldier or nuclear war?, then the total meaningless blahblah in Sunny Lane. Or are there similar songs, same style bound in a concept? No. Actually 85% of the epic is excellent, they improved much from RS's The Flower King, its kinda flawless, if I skip the Mean Machine and Dungeon. But who are the opera singers here? The tenor is the Satan? Who is the soprano? The Angel of God? And after the church choir we get the plain piano, nice, but I dont understand the connection. Chimaera...Where excellent and bad moments attached. Much less pointless solos, but still too much, like in Astral Dog. The musical highlights are: Attack..., middle section of Sunny Lane, beginning of Gardens Revisited, Shadowland (although the music is ceremonial and elevated, so where is the shadowland? Or Shadowland is that we aspire for?) Not considering that the titles are inconsequent, most of the music is quite ok. The most horrible part is the chorus section in Dungeon, brrr...

Disc 2: Wow, starting lightyears better! Deaf... sounds like a masterpiece to me? The most valuable part, coherent, original, ingenious. The solos derivated from the main theme, the short acoustic guitar tune is excellent in its simplicity. Actually, upon the lyrics its a protest song against nuclear weapons. Stupid girl is U2 mixed with Simple Minds as I read in some previous review, I totally agree. Nice, catchy pop song, I love it! Typical example that the less sometimes is more. The random guitar background behind the first verse is excellent. The beginning of Corruption is mindblowing, other parts are forgettable. The lyrics are quite meaningful, at least. Then they play again the tune from Simple song, again stating that there is some concept here. If I had any ideas so far, that there IS any concept on Cd1,now Im totally lost again. The Postcard is excellent, but RS shamelessly copies Steve Howe's guitar style. Hudson River I HATE, what is this, addition to the nonexisting concept? :-) And finally a song that fits FK's style the most. Just a simple love song with excellent vocals from Froberg (RS should pack off from the microphone generally, extremely weak singer if I compare to HF..). No concept, no meaningless solos, the cemballo sounds excellent, finally there is a TUNE in the guitar solo, this is the highlight! Painter is another Magic Pie, but its getting a bit boring after that. The last three ones doesnt add up much to me to the whole. 50% of disc 2 could be left out, it could have been much better. 140 minutes of music is not a problem, but if gets from nowhere to anywhere, than definitely IT IS.

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