The Flower Kings, Chapter 4: Flower Power

4) Flower Power (1999)

I'll conduct a circus out of nowhere, I'll create a kingdom out of dust...

1998 marked the first year since the formation of the band that The Flower Kings didn't release any new material, but it was anything but a lost year for the band. The success of Stardust We Are opened some new international doors for the band, and 1998 saw the band – minus Tomas Bodin, who fell ill – embark on their first American tour (we'll talk more about that next time). Roine Stolt also released a solo album that year, the instrumental and very TFK-esque Hydrophonia. Amidst all this excitement, the band worked on a worthy successor for Stardust, and if you think they'd go small for this one, you haven't been paying attention.

I once heard a fellow internet-based music reviewer say that a good song can make an album, but a great one can ruin it. Flower Power, infamously, contains the band's most ambitious undertaking yet: a song that is an hour long. For any other band, from Echolyn to Jethro Tull, that would be more than enough to fill the entire album. Not for The Flower Kings.

Because, lo and behold, Flower Power (A Journey To The Hidden Corners Of Your Mind) is another double album and “Garden of Dreams” accounts for not even half its full length. If “Garden of Dreams” is a masterpiece (which remains to be seen), how does the rest of the album even justify its existence if it is so overshadowed by that behemoth? In other words, how is there any way Flower Power isn't the most lopsided thing in existence?

Before we can even begin to answer that question, we have to talk about “Garden of Dreams” first. It's an intimidating 59 minutes and 19 seconds long, which makes me wonder why Roine didn't put a few extra seconds on to make it break the one hour mark, just for the heck of it. Mercifully, though, it has been cut into eighteen bite-sized pieces. So, what is “Garden of Dreams” anyhow? Is it a song? A suite? A loosely interconnected selection of songs with a somewhat unifying theme, or a tightly composed master epic?

I've been struggling with that question for a while. It never really feels like a “song” to me. Some of the individual sections are clearly standalone songs, while others clearly aren't. Some pieces are there to be the glue that holds it all together, some seem to exist totally on their own and don't seem to have any connection to the piece as a whole.

Here's what “Garden of Dreams” is to me, or, by all acounts, what it should have been: A concept album. Something in the vein of Amarok, or Thick as a Brick, or The Incident. The Flower Kings have never really made a concept album, except for arguably Desolation Rose. They should have kept it a single disc and called it Garden of Dreams. Flower Power is too obvious a title anyway.

“Garden of Dreams” takes its time at the beginning. The opening isn't a grand ouverture with previews of multiple themes (like Neal Morse writes them), but a cheeky little bolero that dissolves into a “Simple Song”. The lyrics comment on the importance of starting small, and that's just what “Garden of Dreams” does! Things gather a little speed when the third part comes in, “Business Vamp”. The groove starts slowly but reaches crescendo with a keyboard solo courtesy of mr. Bodin. It slowly sucks you in, but it's actually kind of awesome! What follows are two seemingly disconnected verse-chorus songs that are quite good (“All You Can Save” being blessed with a wonderful blues guitar solo) but don't have anything in common and don't yet feel like part of a coherent whole.

The first true climactic moment comes in the form of two chaotic instrumental parts with ridiculous titles: “Attack of the Monster Briefcase” and “Mr. Hope Goes To Wall Street”. Together, they form an explosive prog-rock blowout that gives “Garden of Dreams” some much-needed spice after all the sugar. The keen listener might notice some familiar themes returning already and some sort of structure beginning to emerge out of the primordial chaos. “Did I Tell You” brings things down a bit, but continues the trend of revisiting themes.

The titular “Garden of Dreams” and “Don't Let the Devil In” mark the half-way point. Both are mostly standalone tracks, the first a nice Fröberg-sung ballad and the second one of TFK's most effective hard rockers. We've reached some truly enjoyable territory here.

“Love Is The Word” is another highlight, an incredibly catchy folky tune. After the majestic “There's No Such Night”, we get a long “down” period. “The Mean Machine” and, especially, “Dungeon of the Deep” are long, somewhat abstract, dark and quiet soundscapes. It's almost as if the band takes a break. “Indian Summer” is a slow piano ballad that doesn't immediately bring the beat back.

Up next is “Sunny Lane”, and this is where “Garden of Dreams” really begins to work its magic. One by one, themes from previous sections are revisited in the same chipper, uptempo swing. This instrumental is crucial to giving the thing its coherence. But the true highlight is “Gardens Revisited”, where the theme from “Love is the Word” is elevated to the most breathlessly cathartic moment of the piece. “Shadowland” continues the trend of reprising previous themes, before “The Final Deal” brings the whole thing to a slow and bombastic finale. It's a little predictable perhaps (I half expect Roine to break into “There's an angel standing in the sun” at any moment), but the band have definitely earned it, and it's absolutely satisfying.

“Garden of Dreams” is a monster that commands respect. Is it the all-consuming masterpiece some fans say it is? Well… I find it hard to rate this one against the other TFK epics, because it's so different. The whole is basically equal to the sum of its parts, and it has very good parts. I still like it very much. It's a beautiful, eventful roller coaster journey that is the culmination of all The Flower Kings have been doing at that point. A journey to the hidden corners of the mind. “Garden of Dreams” is still one of the band's signature songs, and the band played it live regularly for a few years (at least, a 45 minute version of it).

I just wished it was the entire album.

It's not just that we still have an entire second disc to come. The first disc still has a good eight minutes to go! That's just foolhardiness. “The Final Deal” should be just that, final. This is especially troublesome since the three remaining tracks on disc one have very little of substance to offer. “Captain Capstan” is an interlude, and a very silly one at that. “IKEA by night” (did I mention The Flower Kings are Swedish?) is an even sillier gag; a four-second drum solo. Despite everything, I can definitely appreciate the audacity of putting a one-hour song cozily alongside a four-second one! It leads into “Astral Dog”, which is probably one of the most dull, plodding, inconsequential instrumentals TFK have ever recorded, and it's endlessly long to boot. I can live with Flower Power being a double album, but I really wish these three songs weren't there.

Isn't "Roine" a sofa or something?

Disc two plays much more like a traditional TFK album, especially since it begins very well. “Deaf, Numb & Blind” is one of those great prog openers that they do so well. It's a little darker than usual, which is welcome. I feel that some sections are maybe a bit too slow, but it's a great track. “Stupid Girl”, with its swinging beat, is one of my favourite TFK pop songs; it goes completely berserk at the end. “Corruption” is a dark reggae song with great vocal harmonies that sounds like the evil twin of “Ghost of the Red Cloud”. I wonder who did the angry goblin voice at the end?

Like most TFK albums, things slow down at track four, as “The Power Of Kindness” is a somewhat forgettable Bodin-penned instrumental that reprises some “Garden of Dreams” themes on curch organ. “Psychedelic Postcard” however is right back on track; it's indeed a psychedelic song with weird effects and weirder lyrics (Roine maintains he's not a pothead, but this one has me wondering…) but a rocking, foot stomping beat. It's at track six when mediocrity finally starts seeping through. “Hudson River Sirens Call 1998” has an intriguing title, but turns out to be nothing but another insubstantial slow jazz jam. Bleh.

Flower Power also marks the first time Hasse Fröberg gets to write a song for The Flower Kings. He remains the Ringo of the band, with the fewest musical contibutions to his name. His song “Magic Pie” is an admirable attempt at a power ballad with, again, just the strangest lyrics ever. “I hope you like my magic pie / I'll cut you a slice and we'll fly away”… Tell me this isn't about recreational drug use? “Painter”, meanwhile, is completely forgettable. The verses are alright, but the chorus drags and is one of the only times Fröberg's voice grates on me.

Things have been on a bit of a downward curve on disc two, but, fortunately, Roine has one last ace up his sleeve: “Calling Home”. The opening lyrics (“if I was a tree, if I was another flower...”) may juuuuust be on the wrong side of cheesy, but otherwise it's a gorgeous song. A simple but highly effective chorus holds it all together, while a Genesis-esque middle-eight brings the prog. The very final minute is actually my favourite bit, an intriguing polyrhythmic section that makes me wonder why that wasn't developed into a song or section of its own. “If I was the sun…” Roine wonders aloud. He'll answer that question on the next album!

Was that the end? Haha, of course not. “Afterlife” is the closing instrumental that bookends the album by reprising the very beginning of “Garden of Dreams” (that bolero section). It's a good idea in theory, but “Afterlife” turns out to be just another pointless instrumental that adds nothing substantial to the album except the bookends that Roine loves so much. This is actually the first time since The Flower King he's done this bookending thing, but it won't be the last.

Flower Power, even more than its predecessor, has a lot of fluff on it. It probably holds the distinction of having the most pointless instumental songs of any TFK album, with “Astral Dog”, “The Power of Kindness”, “Afterlife” and especially “Hudson River Sirens Call 1998” dragging the album down. Its strong songs are strong as ever but there aren't quite as many of them as on Stardust.

You know I'm here...

And then there's the elephant in the room. “Garden of Dreams” should absolutely have been an album in its own right. Taken as a whole, “Garden of Dreams” is unquestionably the best thing on the album, and it makes the rest of it seem paler than it might otherwise have been. On the other hand, I doubt that side two alone could have stood on its own legs if it had been a standalone album. I think side two of Stardust and side two of Flower Power combined might have made one killer album between them. Of the two double albums TFK made in the nineties, Flower Power is the lesser.

At this point in their career, The Flower Kings are in the big league of prog, and that comes with some typical prog band phenomena. The first big line-up changes are upon them, and these changes will end up mostly for the better. We'll talk about this soon enough. In the meantime, I have some miscellaneous material to discuss, including, excitingly, a live album.

RATING: Eighteen gardens out of thirty-one dreams.

CHURCH ORGAN COUNT: “The Power Of Kindness” is mostly curch organ, as is the opening to "Calling Home".

BETTER 50 MINUTE VERSION:
Garden of Dreams only.

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