THE RAINMAKER

For their prior albums the Flower Kings had made a name for themselves with exuberantly over-the-top, playfully whimsical prog rock with a wide range of influences from the 1970s prog wave, but on The Rainmaker they end up delivering something a little different. That might explain the somewhat mixed ratings for the album: it's a fairly subdued affair, and for a lot of listeners "subdued" really isn't the point when you listen to a Flower Kings album.

For me, though, it's great to hear them take a tighter, more disciplined approach to their songwriting, showing a bit more restraint and focus than typical. This inevitably leads to a narrowing of their musical style - the centre of gravity here seems to be reminiscent of early Yes (say, around the time of The Yes Album), with some strong Genesis influences. That said, there's a few departures from this - the final section of Elaine ends up going in a jazz fusion direction for instance - but they're a bit more carefully rationed than is typical for a Flower Kings album. All this is in aid of establishing a rich nocturnal atmosphere - adeptly captured on the album cover - which is in contrast to the bright psychedelic colours of previous albums. This is a Flower Kings album which goes great with late night listening, in particular.

I'm probably rather out of step with most Flower Kings fans in terms of ranking this more highly than any of their previous studio albums, but I really think the lack of creative restraint in their previous work had been their Achilles heel. Sure, it was flashy and attention-grabbing, but the results ended up being somewhat hit and miss. Here there's less energy spent trying to show off all the different styles they can play in at once and more of an effort to present a cohesive album, and it really pays off.