The Flower Kings, Chapter 11: Banks of Eden

11) Banks of Eden (2012)

Do you think it is really over?

When Tour Kaputt hit the stores in 2011, I assumed it was going to be the last little hurrah for The Flower Kings. They had been on hiatus for years and were showing no sign of regrouping. They just needed to get that DVD out of the way. However, less than a year later, out of nowhere, the band announced their comeback; they were to release their eleventh album in early 2012 – another Year of the Dragon – in yet another new line-up.

It was most welcome news. Tour Kaputt would have been such a sad note to go out on! We'd been starved of our TFK fix for a long time, and, even though the last few years hadn't necessarily been the kindest, I was most keen on hearing what Roine and the boys would come up with. This one had a lot riding on it: they were not only tasked with organizing their comeback, they had to convince us that we even wanted The Flower Kings back.

The line-up featuring the mysterious Erik Hammarström and Ola Heden didn't last very long. After a Chilean, a Hungarian, an American and even two Swedes, the TFK drumstool is now filled by a German: Felix Lehrmann, who still, ostensibly, holds the position. A high-energy, hard-hitting drummer who has made a name for himself in the Berlin session scene, Lehrmann injects a hard-rock edge into The Flower Kings. Since his arrival, the band sound louder than ever, especially during live concerts.

So, you know how I'm always going on about how The Flower Kings' albums would be better if they were shorter. For every album, I propose a 50-minute version that cuts out the filler. For their long-awaited comeback, Roine and co actually went ahead and did all that work for me. Banks of Eden is less than an hour long – the shortest TFK album, in fact – and has only five songs, all of which count. Absolutely nothing goes to waste. Whether by accident or by design, The Flower Kings have succeeded for once in making a lean and mean album that gets straight to the point, remains focused all the way through and never outstays its welcome. So it will come as no surprise that I really like Banks of Eden, especially since the songwriting is up to the task.

“Numbers” cuts straight to the chase. It's big, it's bold, it's loud. It's a twenty-five minute exclamation mark of a song that is, incidentally, exactly as long as the band's other “dark epic”, “Devil's Playground”. It's one of the band's more emotionally-charged epics: there's anger, and sadness too, at the state of the world. All the optimism of The Sum of No Evil has been replaced by bitterness and doom, and the song is none the worse for it. Musically, it's another three-act epic with many great musical themes to enjoy. The loud bits are really loud, the quiet bits never break the tension. It all comes together wonderfully at the end. After some less-than-stellar attempts, “Numbers” can once again stand among Roine's best exercises in long-form songwriting. “Numbers” is The Flower King's last true epic, and I can't think of a worthier bearer of that title. It's easily the best TFK song in ten years.

That's half the album over already. The remaining four songs are all in the six- to seven-minute range. That means we have to deal with a familiar TFK problem: the album is frontloaded. The first song is the best one, and the rest of the album will inevitably fail to live up to it. In this particular case, the band solve the problem by keeping the rest of the songs varied and concise.

“For the Love of Gold” is Tomas Bodin's big moment on this album. His frictions with Roine seem to have mended, as the two of them wrote this lovely, like-Yes-but-more-rocking prog rock piece together. This piece could just as easily have been from Stardust We Are. Full of instrumental solos, it brings some of the trademark upbeat Flower Kings jolliness back, although the lyrics are still quite cynical. The vocal harmonies between Roine and Hasse are once again magnificent. Great song.

“Pandemonium” is the album's odd one out. It's another dark, angy piece, with more of a blues streak, and it has those eerie, robotically distorted Roine vocals. I can give or take this song but it has another fabulous guitar solo at the end, and Felix Lehrmann gets to demonstrate his almost Portnoy-esque skill at polyrhythm and hyping up a track.

Then, there's “For Those About To Drown”, a very vocal-driven track, in which Roine tells a somewhat hard-to-follow fairy tale about a king and queen in a detoriorating relationship for which the whole nation pays the price. It's the most straightforward song on the album, a Beatles-esque poppy track with lots of hooks. This one gives the album some breathing room; the next track is another heavy hitter.

Jonas Reingold provides the final track, “Raising the Imperial”. As per usual, it's a reprise of the first song, “Numbers”. It starts out slow and mysterious but culminates in a magnificent guitar solo, followed by a big, emotional climax with Hasse Fröberg singing his heart out in a passionate monologue that brings some of the peace and love themes back that The Flower Kings are known for. It's a hopeful ending to what might have been a bleak album otherwise.

There's only one conclusion after hearing this album: They're back! Banks of Eden is a fantastic album, the shining star of The Flower Kings' later career and a great argument for the relevance of The Flower Kings in the musical landscape of the 2010's. It's short, it's focused, it's tight, it's all these things TFK's albums never were before but it's vintage TFK all the same.

Here's the trick: Roine actually did have enough material to make another 80 minute album, but he deliberately chose to reign things in and make the album flow. That's why the special edition has a bonus disc: these are four more tracks that didn't make the cut. They could easily have been tacked on the end of the first disc, but I'm gratful to Roine (and InsideOut) that they didn't. It's a move similar to, say, Porcupine Tree's The Incident or IQ's Road of Bones. I haven't talked much about bonus material in this series – this whole thing is pushing 40.000 words and you gotta draw the line somewhere – but this is a fine collection of bonus songs and worth seeking out.

It's a choice that's paid off, but what's more is that The Flower Kings have got their mojo again. Most of the material on this album, especially “Numbers”, “For the Love of Gold” and “Raising The Imperial” is right up there with their best work. Banks Of Eden is my favourite album since Unfold The Future and in my top 5 of favourite TFK albums. It's too bad the revival ultimately didn't last very long, but for the time being, this was about the best comeback anyone could hope for. Bands on hiatus: take note. This is how it's done.

RATING: Four and a half Jeff Goldblums and a zeppelin out of the Success Kid Meme

CHURCH ORGAN COUNT: Immediately at the beginning of “Numbers”. What was that about cutting to the chase? Again during the finale of “Rising The Imperial”.

BETTER 50 MINUTE VERSION:
Same as the original

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