The Flower Kings, Chapter 0: The Flower King

0) The Flower King (1994)

Falling out of the sky, falling into a dream...

So here's album number zero, a disk called The Flower King by an artist called Roine Stolt. It was written and recorded mostly in 1993 and saw the light of day in 1994.

Do not be fooled by the fact that this album does not bear the “Flower Kings” (plural) stamp. Do not be fooled by the absence many of the players we associate with The Flower Kings today (notably Tomas Bodin and Jonas Reingold, the latter of whom wouldn't join the band until 1999). It looks, walks and quacks like a duck. This is already very much a Flower Kings album, in every sense of the word.

NIELS's KOMPLIET EN DIEFINITIF GAAID TOE THE FLOWER KINGS

Preface

The Flower Kings. They are the iconic progressive rock band from Uppsala, Sweden, who have been active from 1994 until 2015. Formed by Roine Stolt, who spent most of the seventies playing guitar in pioneering Swedish prog group Kaipa, The Flower Kings were a way for him to celebrate his love for the progressive rock glory days of old. It was a highly unfashionable thing to do in the early nineties, but against all odds, the band grew and grew in stature and is now considered one of the greatest modern purveyors of the genre. In a little over twenty years (actually fewer, as there was a five-year hiatus in the middle) they made thirteen studio albums and a whole lot of other miscellaneous material. Most of the band members were also involved in plenty of other bands, progressive or otherwise, and remain so until this day.

The current (last?) line-up of The Flower Kings: Roine Stolt, Hasse Fröberg, Tomas Bodin, Jonas Reingold, Felix Lehrmann. Source: InsideOut