2023 Number 7: The Flower Kings

NIELS' TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2023: Number 7
The Flower Kings – Look At You Now

 

On this blog, I need not further prove my credentials as a huge Flower Kings fan, just look at my archives. I don’t think anyone has written more about the music of The Flower Kings than I have, but as time goes on (and I’ve gotten to know some of them) writing about them has become harder. In the grand scheme of their career, here we have an album that is a bit more mellow and ballad-focused, though it’s also the first TFK album in a while that has a song on it longer than ten minutes, which I kind of wish they’d start doing more often again. Nobody does it like them. After some darker albums, this one is hopeful, occasionally sublime and notably more than the sum of its parts. Watching them play live, the new songs stand up well among the older material. They could have stood to play more of it, I think.

Roine is visibly ageing. I get the feeling that The Flower Kings are slowly becoming a legacy act, which may not be a bad thing. Still, Roine has things to say and the new albums are coming in pretty fast again, just like they used to. I have not rated all of their albums in the past few years, but this one has connected with me again, which makes me hopeful. Next year will be another Year of the Dragon, always significant in TFK-land. I wonder what’s going to happen? Surely Roine has another masterpiece left in him?