Friday, November 23, 2007

The Flower Kings - Flower Power

Teaser

The Flower Kings - Flower Power (2 CD) (1999)
EAC Image (WAV+CUE) | Monkey Audio APE (High) - 445 + 495 MB | Ogg Vorbis (VBR, average round 220 kbit/sec) - 124 + 133 MB | Advanced audio AAC (M4A) - 115 + 125 MB | Covers - 854 kB
Progressive rock / Jazz rock

445 + 495 MB of lossless
854 kB of covers
115 + 125 MB of m4as (AAC)
124 + 133 MB of oggs



"Wikipedia:
The Flower Kings are a Swedish progressive rock band. Formed in 1993 by veteran guitarist Roine Stolt as a touring band to support his solo album The Flower King, the band stayed together after the tour and have gone on to become one of the most prolific studio recording units in rock music of their era. In ten years they have released nearly 18 hours of music.

The Flower Kings have seen frequent personnel changes. The original line-up for Stolt's solo album consisted of Stolt (vocals, electric guitar, bass, keyboards), Jaime Salazar (drums), and Hasse Fröberg (vocals). When the full band was formed, they added Michael Stolt (bass) and Tomas Bodin (keyboards). Michael Stolt and Salazar have both left the band since its formation, replaced by Jonas Reingold (bass) and Zoltan Csörsz (drums). Other contributors have included Hasse Bruniusson (percussion), Ulf Wallander (saxophone) and Daniel Gildenlöw of Pain of Salvation (vocals, guitar, keyboards and percussion). Zoltan Csörsz has recently been replaced by new drummer Marcus Liliequist. Daniel Gildenlöw recently left because of personal issues. According to a Myspace blog posted by Roine Stolt on April 2, 2007, Zoltan Csörsz will be the drummer on the upcoming record, and perhaps reclaim his spot permanently.

Roine Stolt has written the vast majority of the material the band has recorded, with Bodin contributing most of the rest. The music is perhaps best described as "symphonic," bearing a strong resemblance in many instances to that of Yes, and yet there are also hints of strong influence from the jazz fusion genre. The band's lyrics are almost uniformly positive, affirming such values as love, peace, and spirituality.

Their 1999 album Flower Power contains one of the longest progressive rock tracks ever recorded, the eighteen-section, nearly 60-minute "Garden of Dreams."
"


Detailed information about the band available! Visit allmusic, Wiki, home or MySpace.

Tracklisting:
CD 1
Garden of Dreams
- 1. Dawn
- 2. Simple Song
- 3. Business Vamp
- 4. All You Can Save
- 5. Attack of the Monster Briefcase
- 6. Mr. Hope Goes to Wall Street
- 7. Did I Tell You
- 8. Garden of Dreams
- 9. Don't Let the d'Evil In
- 10. Love Is the Word
- 11. There's No Such Night
- 12. The Mean Machine
- 13. Dungeon of the Deep
- 14. Indian Summer
- 15. Sunny Lane
- 16. Gardens Revisited
- 17. Shadowland
- 18. The Final Deal
19. Captain Capstan
20. IKEA by Night
21. Astral Dog

CD 2
1. Deaf, Numb & Blind
2. Stupid Girl
3. Corruption
4. Power Of Kindness
5. Psycedelic Postcard
6. Hudson River Sirens Call 1998
7. Magic Pie
8. Painter
9. Calling Home
10. Afterlife

Looking for reviews? Sure thing, here they are: @ Wiki, @ allmusic, @ progressiveworld and @ progarchives.

"allmusic:
Released in early 1999, Flower Power was at the time the most adventurous project the Flower Kings had undertaken. This two-CD set features on disc one "Garden of Dreams," an 18-part 60-minute mammoth epic. With its 140 minutes, Flower Power is hard to digest even for the dedicated fan and, truth be told, the Flower Kings would have been better off releasing "Garden of Dreams" as an album of its own and then rework and make a more rigorous selection in the remaining material for use on a future album. Some filler material on disc two drags down the average quality of the album. Considering its length, "Garden of Dreams" is a tour de force: Musical ideas follow one another in a succession of tableaux unified by a common mood and a few recurring themes. Worth to note is the fact that the piece was written by guitarist Roine Stolt and Tomas Bodin together, something highly unusual; on previous albums, Stolt wrote 90 percent of the material, letting Bodin slip a short piece of incidental music once in a while to serve as a bridge between two beefier songs. Here, their collaboration helped crystallize maybe the best example of the Flower Kings; sound in a roller coaster hour with very few below-average moments. But disc two is a disappointment: "Deaf, Numb & Blind" is a nice song, but it doesn't stand a chance against "Garden of Dreams" or older pieces like "There Is More to This World" and "In the Eyes of the World." "Psychedelic Postcard" is very original and quirky by the band's standards and includes a strange verse and intermezzo that seem inspired by Absolutely Free-era Frank Zappa. While "Power of Kindness" and "Magic Pie" are uneventful numbers, the mid-tempo "Calling Home" and "Painter" show potential but don't seem to reach their full emotional strength. Are the Flower Kings doing too much? One thing is sure: "Garden of Dreams" would have had a lot more impact as a stand-alone track.
"


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