STARDUST WE ARE

The fact that the Flower Kings' rhythm section sounds just like Yes's (especially their bass player), while Roine Stolt tries to play guitar solos just like Zappa's and Tomas Bodin does what he can to replicate Tony Banks's keyboard solos - none these bother me, on the contrary, I'm glad some musicians have returned to the idiom of classic symphonic prog.

What really annoys me, though, is Stolt's pedestrian lyrics: the man is obviously unashamed of piling cliché upon cliché upon cliché (with a few awkward quotes from Beatles or Jimi Hendrix classics chucked in for good measure) and enunciates every single word as if it's heartfelt gospel truth.

On STARDUST WE ARE, however, virtually all the music is so catchy, and the twenty-five minute epic is so full of wonderful ideas that the band's defects really don't matter. The Flower Kings are notorious for delivering double albums with too much filler. STARDUST WE ARE, I feel, is a triumph. It contains relatively few weak moments, and the title track almost takes you to that same special place Yes found on 'Close to the Edge', and Genesis on 'Supper's Ready'. It's a spectacular achievement - truly ecstatic symphonic prog. Oh, you may need some 'suspension of disbelief'; after all it's hard to feel ecstatic about lyrics like: 'Driving down the Memory Lane / Dusty dreams from a fading sun / Remember how the horses run' (etc.) But the music may just about take you there.

The only thing I don't like about this album is its spectacularly hideous cover.