Flower Kings Appreciation Thread

^ What Nov says is right, Monsters and Men is a sublime piece of beauty and easily the best track off Paradox Hotel.  In my book it's right up there behind I Am The Sun and Garden of Dreams in my TFK top 3.

Roj M30 wrote: ^ What Nov says is right, Monsters and Men is a sublime piece of beauty and easily the best track off Paradox Hotel.  In my book it's right up there behind I Am The Sun and Garden of Dreams in my TFK top 3.   PH lives up to it's title for me, it really is a paradox and probably the least Flower Kings-ish album they have made.  Very much song based although the book ends of each disc are pretty long pieces.  That said I love pretty much all of it.  Hit Me With A Hit is a nice song, Self Consuming Fire is gorgeous as is The Waters and Minor Giant Steps is fab.  Life Will Kill You and the title track rock whilst What If God is Alone is stunning.   Me being me I have an uncanny liking for Bavarian Skies.  I'm sure many will hate it, but the lyrics are interesting and I don't think I've ever skipped it.   Darkshade, let us know what you think once you've listened to it a few more times .

Well, I disagree with the first sentence, but totally agree with all the rest.  No matter how many times I listen to Monsters and Men (and I can tell you, it is more than I can remember at this point), it still seems quite average to me.  Not bad, not particularly great either.  A bit dull most of the time, I'm afraid.  Still, I never skip it and would never say it was bad, just on the bottom half of my favorite FK epics list.

As to the rest, I've always like Bavarian Skies.  Very creepy and interesting, and I love the melodies in it for some reason.  The title track actually I find kind of irritating, but I wouldn't call it a bad song.  Just grates on my ears really.  Other than that, the other tracks you mention are all superb and I consider them all top flight FK material.  You didn't mention Touch My Heaven, which I think is one of Tomas' best song contributions (as opposed to instrumental) to any FK album (only surpassed by Garden Of Dreams, which he wrote at least half the music for).

So what's the deal with TFK? Are they on hiatus? Are they gone? Is there a new album? Or has TFK morphed into Agents of Mercy?

Andyman1125 wrote: Or has TFK morphed into Agents of Mercy?

One of my favorite prog bands - not just of the past 20 years - of all times!

Paradox Hotel is the first album of theirs that Ive gotten where I notice why some fans feel they have some filler in certain albums, like this one.

UtF and Flower Power don't really IMO, though I know each album has about 1 song I dont necessarily care for (though I sit through them)

I bring this up because as I was listening to Paradox Hotel disc 1, towards the last few tracks I thought "Is it over yet?"

***As for the TFK2012 Reunion, both Roine and Jonas hinted at it. I wonder if they're cool with Bodin yet? I'd rather have Jonas and Zoltan on bass and drums respectively, than Bodin on keys and them just getting the Karmakanic keyboardist.


Edited by darkshade - July 08 2011 at 12:43

Roland113 wrote: Hey all, To those of you that don't pay attention to the polls section, there's been a 'World Cup' of post 70's music series of polls going on.  The current iteration includes the band that we've now devoted 126 pages to.  If you're so inclined, go vote for The Flower Kings. http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=79669

Barney and Roj,

Great to hear from you guys, shoot, even Henk posted on this page...we need to get something from Jeff also...

Life in the US is good, the country band is moving along, we're opening for a pair of national acts next week and we have hired a couple of ringers for drums and guitar for the show.  Controlled chaos is the best way to describe it.

Last night's practice was the first time with the drummer and guitar player.  Holy heck it was fantastic.  We started jamming some Dream Theater which, as you can imagine, was a welcome change form the twang that you expect.  I may have to try and hook up with these guys outside of the country band for fun.

Go team Floki!

*laughs* no, we did the Dream Theater as a bit of fun between the country songs that we were actually rehearsing for the gig.  

Paradox Hotel arrived yesterday and I have to say, I think its one of their better albums with End On A High Note and Minor Giant Steps being my favorite songs from the album.  Bavarian Skies is the only song that I don't think is particularly good (not because of the lyrics though).