THE FUTURE KINGS OF ENGLAND

This has been my biggest discovery so far in 2008. These guys blend Psychedelic, Krautrock and Post- Rock like none i've ever heard before. This is modern sounding instrumental music that creates atmospheric and psychedelic soundscapes.The Post-Rock flavour is by far the strongest in my opinion.The album cover is very cool as well, especially the back cover.

"At Long Last..." is the one minute intro. They actually took part of King Edward VIII's abdication speech which begins with "At long last I am able to say a few words of my own". As he speaks there is a pleasant acoustic guitar melody playing. "10:66" opens with eereie and haunting sounds as drums and guitar come in. Some spoken words after 2 1/2 minutes as the melody stops. It comes back and slowly builds to a heavy duty sound before 5 minutes.This is great ! The tempo picks up 6 minutes in although it's still pretty sludgey. The Post-Rock style guitars are peeling the paint at this point. "Humber Doucy Lane" opens with a sinister bass line that is slowly picked. You can hear kids playing. Mellotron floods the soundscape as drums and guitar tastefully play. It builds to a fantastic wall of sound. Mellotron stops before 4 minutes. Kids are back playing after 5 minutes to the end of the track. Mellotron comes in wave after wave 7 1/2 minutes in to the end of the song as well.

"Silent The Invisible Converts" opens with lots of aggression but settles down quickly to a gorgeous sound. It starts to build to a heavy sound. It's built ! Punishing sound. It starts to calm back down 6 minutes in, but it doesn't last long. Awesome ending. "October Moth" isn't as heavy as what we were just listening to but it's raw, powerful, beautiful and uplifting. Excellent tune. "Lilly Lockwood" opens with a guitar sound played slowly over and over. Mellotron comes in as bass, cymbals and guitar play in this pastoral section. Drums and a full sound 1 1/2 minutes in. It stops abruptly a minute later and a new melody arrives. You can hear voices as drums pound and spacey sounds howl. The guitar is playing as well. The sound gets a little dissonant. An uplifting, heavenly sound(including mellotron) arrives 6 1/2 minutes in to end it. Nice. "The March Of The Mad Clowns" opens with heavy drums that turn into a marching style rhythm. The guitar creates some psychedelic sounds. "Pigwhistle" is the longest song at 14 minutes. A nice heavy sound becomes quite intense 2 minutes in. It calms right down 2 1/2 minutes in until all we can hear is a bass line and people speaking in the background faintly. This is very atmospheric, dark and haunting as sounds rise and fall.It changes after 8 minutes as the guitar plays gently and drums and mellotron join in. It's building. Amazing sound 11 1/2 minutes in. "God Save The King" is the short conclusion. It's like they took part of the intro(first song) and processed it heavily making it very psychedelic much like these future kings.

They create dark and atmospheric soundscapes in that Post-Rock style with plenty of mellotron. This album continues to get better with each listen.This is like exploring a new land and finding new things everytime I go back.There are so many amazing passages on this record. I'm in awe.

Future Kings Of England's self-titled debut is a mesmerizing gem that almost everyone seems to have missed out on. And if it hadn't been for mr Mellotron Storm so would I. A big thanks there! The band released 2 more albums since this debut and while they continued a high quality standard, none of them touches me as much as this one.

Future Kings Of England are a band that has found a unique spot for themselves inbetween majestic post-rock and psychedelic kraut/space-rock. You will also find traces of the mind-expanding 68-71 Floyd era, but it never really sounds like the Floyd to me. The band has more in common to GYBE, be it with more attention to melody and without those extreme quite-loud "dynamics". Both are a plus as far as I'm concerned.

Most songs are quite long, and gradually build, rise and release tension while going through big multiple bars spanning melodies. Fans of minor-key guitar arpeggios and soaring spacious leads will lick their fingers clean on this one. The sound is very open and organic, a bit rough in the drum department but all instruments resonate loud and cleary.

With such a low number of reviews I would certainly dare to call this one low-rated, even though the happy few who have visited this beautiful album have all rated it very highly. Very recommended to lovers of instrumental post-rock and space-rock.

A very good Post Rock album that ranks right up with the best I've heard from this sub-genre . . . but can't quite earn a 5 star "masterpiece" rating cuz of the fact that the boys stick fairly closely to the standard format?with very few real innovations other than sounds and multiple guitar layers on "October Moth."

Oops! this isn't Post rock?!!

Oh well. Favorites:

"10:66" (8/10) opens with a Frippertronic/"infinite guitar" note (kind of like Fripp did on Sylvian's "Wave") and is then joined by the full band. A mysterious interlude spoken vocal is in a Slavic language?which all but negates its effectiveness but is followed by guitar arpeggios from the opening section and background violin noodling. The song crescendos in a rather violent almost punk- like sound with 'hoodlum' type voices running off in the background.

"Humber Doucy Lane" (7/10)opens with some very old-style "Rising Sun" electric guitar arpeggios with full ANIMALS sound in the accompanying band?at least, that is, until the 3:40 mark when there is a shift to some slow chord strums tying a different set of arpeggios together. Then at 4:45 we're suddenly thrown onto some reverbe/echo guitar picking on the playgrounds from the end of Pat & Lyle's "As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls." Obviously the lane referred to in the song title means something to these blokes. Mellotron and bells play out in a French film score way to end.

"Silent and Invisible Converts" (8/10) stars with some pretty straightforward rock'n'roll descending electric guitar chords?which then transform into the same chords being arpeggios with 'flute' accompaniment. Until 1:40 when a new set of three chords are again ominously strummed as bass and cymbols keep exact time (almost Who-like!) The tempo picks up, slowly building, faster and faster, until some very crazed space guitar effects and "ahh's" join and accompany the band to about 5:40 when most instruments cut out leaving only the screaming space guitar and rolling bass?then for a minute just bass before some U2/EDGE- like guitar chords scream out over an old organ?to a Who ending!

"October Moth" (9/10) is a much more laid-back floating-type of song?acoustic guitars picking in both the left and right channels while distorted and space guitars also play. Very unusual and cool song.

"Lilly Lockwood" (8/10) is an eery song that reminds me of a melange between THE BEATLES at their most eery and U2's first two album guitar sounds and GENESIS' "The Waiting Room." (What a combo!)

This is also my favorite album overall from TFKoE--though I very much enjoy their 2011 release, "Who Is This Who Is Coming?"

If through the first few listens you're thinking the debut of Future Kings of England is a miscast post-rock album, give it time. The psychedelic influence is quite apparent, particularly in the abundance of mellotrons and spacey sounding guitars. Yet the trademark military sounding post- rock drums come into the fore often, notably on ''Lilly Lockwood''.

The prevailing mood of the album is actually heavy and intense (not in metal terms), layered with phantasmagoric mellotron washes, thick drumming, searing guitar lines, and the occasional sound bite for whatever reason. The album is also cluttered with long songs, so this isn't a quick listen despite the run time missing one hour. Actually, I find that a flaw with FUTURE KINGS OF ENGLAND; while there are great ideas in the psych pieces, the songs feel about as their run times suggest. Granted, there's no grand epic of sorts, and ''Pigwhistle'' has a Porcupine Tree-esque beginning, but sometimes it doesn't help that it feels a bit long in the tooth.

Even so, the Future Kings of England have established a sound identity with tracks like ''10:66'' and ''Silent and Invisible Converts''. This is music for both fans of psychedelic rock and post rock as the merger of the two styles is remarkably credible.