Flower Power (1999)Tomas Bodin - keyboards
Hasse Bruniusson - percussion
Hasse Fröberg - vocals
Jaime Salazar - drums
Michael Stolt - bass guitar
Roine Stolt - vocals, guitars, keyboards, bass guitar
Ulf Wallander - soprano saxophone
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Disc 1:
1-18. "Garden Of Dreams" (Tomas Bodin, Stolt)
"Dawn"
"Simple Song"
"Business Vamp"
"All You Can Save"
"Attack Of The Monster Briefcase"
"Mr. Hope Goes To Wall Street"
"Did I Tell You?"
"Garden Of Dreams"
"Don't Let The d'Evil In"
"Love Is The Word"
"There's No Such Night"
"The Mean Machine"
"Dungeon Of The Deep"
"Indian Summer"
"Sunny Lane"
"Gardens Revisited"
"Shadowland"
"The Final Deal"
19. "Captain Capstan"
20. "Ikea By Night" (Jaime Salazar)
21. "Astral Dog" (Salazar, Stolt)
Disc 2:
1. "Deaf, Numb & Blind"
2. "Stupid Girl"
3. "Corruption"
4. "Power Of Kindness" (Bodin)
5. "Psychedelic Postcard"
6. "Hudson River Sirens Call 1998"
7. "Magic Pie" (Hasse Fröberg)
8. "Painter"
9. "Calling Home"
10. "Afterlife" (Bodin, Stolt)
(all songs written and composed by Roine Stolt, except where noted)
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Now we move on to Flower Power, the band's 4th studio album and their 2nd double album. It was also my introduction to the band back in the spring of 2000. When I got the CD, I was immediately struck by how gorgeous the album cover is. There was just something surreal and almost hypnotic about it that grabbed me, and it remains my favorite album cover of theirs to this day, by a wide margin.
The music matches the greatness of the album cover. In fact, some of those dazzling keyboard lines heard during the first half of Business Vamp sound like they were written to match the album cover. Strange as that sounds, that is always the impression I get. The subtitle on the cover of "Journey To The Hidden Corners Of Your Mind" couldn't be any more appropriate, as the Garden of Dreams suite that takes up most of Disc 1 pretty much runs the gauntlet and takes you to places you never thought you'd go in such a short span. Is that a bit hyperbolic? Probably, but nearly 14 years after first hearing the near-hour long suite, I am still blown to shreds when I listen to in full and the magnitude of its totality overwhelms me for the nth time. Business Vamp remains, for me. the best five minutes of Flower Kings music ever, while All You Can Save has arguably Roine Stolt's best recorded guitar solo ever (although there are many top contenders for the throne).
The rest of the album is mostly really good as well, but, oddly, it took me nearly a year after getting these CDs to actually listen to anything from it besides the GoD suite. Tacking the two short songs and Astral Dog on to the end of the first disc was more than a bit strange, and the second disc mostly sounds like a bunch of songs that are in (mostly) no discernible order, aside from the obvious opener in Deaf, Numb and Blind (great song!) & the closer in Afterlife (which reprises the melody from the beginning of Garden of Dreams). But, even though the flow is a touch lacking, especially when compared to Stardust We Are, which has an immaculate flow, the songs are still there. I have always had major love for Psycedelic Postcard and Stupid Girl, and there is something about both Painter and Calling Home that I just really love. In fact, while typing this, I realize, when the songs are this good, who cares about flow?!
Even the Hasse Froberg-penned Magic Pie is fairly enjoyable, thanks to some out of this world playing by Tomas Bodin in the latter half of the song. I wasn't a fan of that song for a long time. but Bodin's work in it finally converted me somewhat recently. Basically, when I finally got into Disc 2, it was like finding money, money that had been under my nose for a year already! Haha.
Notable, too, is that was the last Flower Kings album that Michael Stolt appears on. Being that the band is so unknown that it is difficult to find any information on them, especially on events that predate my fandom, so I am unaware as to why he left the band, but if anyone has any inside information regarding it, feel free to share!