Shelleyan Orphan Century Flower

Dreams are an essential part of the musical world. Despite having been firmly involved in Sweden's highly fertile prog rock scene in the '70s, Roine Stolt (Kaipa, The Tangent, Transatlantic) was still harbouring dreams of maximum creative fulfilment when he arrived in the '90s, guitar in hand and a head full of sublime musical ideas. The end-result was a solo album, 'The Flower King', which struck such a resounding chord with a small but growing number of prog fans around the planet. It also proved to be one of a handful of albums that helped to kick-start and underpin a worldwide resurgence for adventurous, symphonic rock music that is still gaining momentum over two decades later. You can find the proof of what happened next within this lavish, generously proportioned box set containing the first half of The Flower Kings' extraordinary catalogue of immersive, immaculate studio albums…

The idea isn't bad, the result is rather convincing, and the added incentive is enough to make The Road Back Home a worthy addition to a Flower Kings fan's collection, but do read on, because you should know what you're getting. This two-CD set is a compilation album – a theme compilation album, in fact…

Time Life presents 'Flower Power: Music Of The Love Generation.' Our 10-CD, 175-track set is full of the artists and songs who defined the Baby Boomer generation - it's a box full of memories that will bring listeners back in time to an unforgettable era.This late–60s and early-'70s pop culture phenomena had many facets, from free love and psychedelia to
anti-war and hippies. This vivid youth movement was reflected in the music… the world listened and has never been the same again.

The ever prolific Roine Stolt brings his Swedish prog-rock monolith the Flower Kings back into the studio for a double-disc outing created around the notion of existence. Light stuff, eh? It is, actually. For those who are wrapped tight in prog rock's knotty, twist-and-turn melodies, quick-change tempos, harmonic extensions, eloquent, guitar pathways that are only topped by keyboard excesses that display acumen and prowess, and glistening production – and production where it takes eight hours to get a guitar solo right in the studio – Paradox Hotel will seem a tad foreign, and perhaps even strange…

Another stroke of genius. Vastly different from their darker and highly melodic Paradox Hotel and a nod to the jazz of Space Revolver, the happiness of Stardust we are, and the positive melody-writing of Adam and Eve. This album completely kicks out their tendencies to make an album-flow with short songs, intermissions and interludes…

The Flower Kings enjoyed a rather long break following 2007's The Sum of No Evil album and the tour that ensued, with individual members undertaking solo projects or simply laying low, recharging their creative batteries after years of grueling, non-stop work. Naturally, however, this hiatus only heightened fan expectations leading into the band's next progressive rock challenge, 2012's Banks of Eden, which inevitably found the lovable Swedish egg-heads both reveling in and wrestling the characteristic excess, majesty, and hubris of their chosen art form, as expected. Indeed, cynics could easily allege that the album's opening, 25-minute-long "Numbers" is pretty much what happens when a prog rock band starts jamming and simply doesn't bother stopping (nerds armed with instruments gone wild!?)…

Formed in 1967, this Japanese proggy-doom heavy rockin' band started their career with 60's West coast acid rock covers under the name Yuya Uchida & The Flowers ("Challenge", 1969). With "Anywhere" (1970 they were in search of their own sound and musical identity, surfing on 70's California rock and on the stoned heavy rock of the Sabbath. Satori (1971) remains their ultimate masterpiece, delivering a really captivating, personal psych-hard rockin' trip with discreet Eastern mystical influences. After this mesmerising stoner rock essay the band released a last album "Make up" (1973). Flower Travellin' Band is definitely a 70's cult psychedelic/space rock standard and a strong reference on the Japaneses underground scene with other psych-proto-metallers as Brush!? and Les Rallizes Denudes.

There are a few artists out there that, without trying to change the world, succeeded in accomodating the old recipes to the present day. In the domain of Progressive rock, The Flower Kings is the perfect example. Following a path not unsimilar to Spock's Beard's, the swedish band led by guitarist Roine Stolt achieved to leave its mark in the middle of the Nineties, accompanying the rebirth of Progressive rock. It remains on top of the genre nowadays. It is no surprise then if, after having paid tribute to most of the giants of the Golden Seventies, the artists of today tend to care about that second generation as well. That's how the Musea label and the Colossus fanzine created an album in four CDs, tailor-made for the excellency of The Flower Kings: "A Flower Full Of Stars - A Tribute To The Flower Kings".