BY ROYAL DECREE

By Royal Decree follows the same general format as the preceding two Flower Kings albums, Waiting For Miracles and Islands - it's a two-CD release, but the running time is a shade over 90 minutes rather than being the sort of epic monster album the band used to put out in the 1990s, and the focus is on (by their standards) shorter pieces rather than epics. That doesn't mean it's less Flower Kings-y by any stretch of the imagination - it just means that the compositions are a bit tighter. Though Waiting For Miracles is still the best album of this clutch of three, By Royal Decree is still a solidly entertaining collection of work, leaning perhaps a bit more on the Yes-influenced side of their sound and a bit less on the quirky, Zappa-esque playfulness which crept in during Islands.