The Flower Kings - Space Revolver

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Artist:	The Flower Kings
Title:	Space Revolver
Label:	Inside Out IOMCD062
Length(s):	76 minutes
Year(s) of release:	2000
Month of review:	09/2000

Line up

I hope the line-up is still:
Roine Stolt - guitars, lead voice, keyboards
Tomas Bodin - keyboards
Hasse Froberg - lead and backing voice
Michael Stolt - bass
Jaime Salazar - drums

Tracks

1)	I Am The Sun (part One)	15.03
2)	Dream On Dreamer	2.43
3)	Rumble Fish Twist	8.06
4)	Monster Within	12.55
5)	Chicken Farmer Song	5.09
6)	Underdog	5.29
7)	You Don't Know What You've Got	2.39
8)	Slave To Money	7.30
9)	A Kings Prayer	6.02
10)	A Am The Sun (part Two)	10.48

Summary

Finally a single album from these guys. After two double studio and a live double we return the single cd format. Of course Stolt has not sat still in the meantime having quite some success with Transatlantic. But then again the previous studio album was from 1998.

The music

Although it is only a single disc, it is a long one. The album opens with the fifteen minutes of the first part of the in total almost 26 minutes of I Am The Sun. After a rather quiet opening, the music gets a strong groove with heavy bass and low rhythm guitar chords. The music is quite aggressive here with some weird interjections by Bodin. The vocal part is quite accessible itself and the somewhat spokenish vocals of Stolt and melody line itself sounds quite familiar, typically Flower Kings. The chorus is more melodic I guess with plenty of mellotron in the back. I hear some wind instruments, say a sop sax, in an interlude. Quite a heavy piece with some rather playful passages on harpsichord, piano to liven it up a bit. The middle part has quite some extensive musical rambling: sax, weird singing, backward played percussion and such. Disjointed, but of course finally we get back into the melodic part of the track, but not before the song becomes positively jazzy with a guitar solo rather typical of seventies jazzrock. Just after 10 minutes Genesis comes to the fore and the pace is upped, but then the music is allowed to come to almost a standstill and the piano takes care of a nice romantic interlude, later accompanied by acoustic guitar. Great atmosphere here. The music is quite Spanish sounding here. A mellow ending. Dream On Dreamer again features the high notes of a soprano sax. A dreamy track (not very surprising) with long low bass tones, hazy, whispered vocals and dreamy keyboards. Think Stu Hamm and ballad here. Rumble Fish Twist is back to prog with double bass drums and weird, wacky sounds flying about. One might think of Spock's Beard here in their wacky moments. In fact, the sounds are maybe Flower Kings, but their definitely seem to be some SB influences here. The guitarwork is typically Stolt though and the music is freeer than with SB. The impression is given that this is a live track with people shouting along. A potent brew. Later on the music becomes more relaxed and melodic with some nice spaceous, intense guitar playing ranging from bluesy to optimistic. Great material. Monster Within again brings us a quite heavy Flower Kings with some great melodic parts and Stolt taking to some more involved singing (to be contrasted with his often rather lame singing). Accessible melodies on guitar are alternated with double bass drums and heavy drumming throughout making for a thunderous piece. Chicken Farmer Song opens with morse sounds, that tend to pop up throughout. A rather weird, sunny track this with a strong holiday feel to it. Strangely enough the track is not just sunny, but good as well although I have the impression the song should not be taken too seriously. I'm reminded of Phish here. In Underdog we have the return of the bombasm to the music with strongly optimistic overtones in the chorus and Froberg is finally allowed to show his vocal powers and Bodin is allowed to play some over the top church organs. You Don't Know What You've Got is a almost only vocal track. No prog here, just some acoustics and vocals by Froberg. Pop vocal music and not very good IMO. Slave To Money is typical progressive rock from Flower kings it seems, but for instance the pacey interlude is again quite untypical. A beautifully intense guitar solo rounds it all off. A Kings Prayer is a bit of a mellow track with a whining guitar and a melodramatic, yet moving chorus. The ending is quite heavy again with some plain rock mixed in, but Bodin also plays his symphonic part. The album ends with the ten minute left over of I Am The Sun. An easy beginning here. The pace of the track continues to be quite relaxed, a bit Camel like in fact. After a hazy atmospheric interlude we come to a waltzlike part and then the music takes a turn for the melodic a note on which the album of course must end.

Conclusion

Well the music is definitely Flower Kings, but in places the music is now more hard-edged, more aggressive and against the grain. This especially holds for a track like Rumble Fish Twist and in fact most tracks have their weird interlude. The band continues to play around at times and put everything they can think of into their music: funky grooves, jazzrock licks, jamming rock, loud church organs, morse sounds. On the whole an appealing album, although I didn't care much for that short ballad in the middle, with some very strong moments, both in power and in melody. The focus is much less on guitar solo's and vocals on this album, and maybe that is a good thing, making the album sound more wholesome, more integrated. It is hard for me to compare this album to its predecessor, but if people say they like this one better than say Garden Of Dreams, I for one would not be surprised.