The+flower+kings

Swedish progressive rock legends The Flower Kings, and longtime label-partners InsideOutMusic, will begin an extensive reissue campaign in 2022, which will see the entire catalogue of the band reissued on CD & Vinyl in remastered editions, with it being the first time many of the albums have been available on wax. The next in the series is the band’s fifth album ‘Space Revolver’, which saw the arrival of Jonas Reingold on bass. It will be available as Ltd. CD Digipak & Gatefold black 2LP+CD & LP-Booklet (for the first time!), both featuring remastered and partly remixed audio and new artwork.

Swedish progressive rock legends The Flower Kings, and longtime label-partners InsideOutMusic, will begin an extensive reissue campaign in 2022, which will see the entire catalogue of the band reissued on CD & Vinyl in remastered editions, with it being the first time many of the albums have been available on wax. The next in the series is the band’s sixth album ‘The Rainmaker’. It will be available as Ltd. CD Digipak & Gatefold black 2LP+CD & LP-Booklet (for the first time!), both featuring remastered and partly remixed audio and new artwork.

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 Flower Kings on this double-disc, live CD, featuring six compositions ("Garden of Dreams" is in two parts, making for a total of seven tracks) offer one of the brightest views yet of a band whose obsession with musical exploration and complex harmonic issues never, ever gets in the way of an honest expression of "song," and the human emotions and narratives within it. Led by guitarist and vocalist Roine Stolt, this Swedish septet offers a live outing every bit as adventurous as their studio offerings. Stolt's debt to Yes' Jon Anderson and Steve Hackett is still everywhere evident, but his lyrics are not consciously obtuse, and are drenched in life-affirming scenarios. Musically, the band's reliance on melody and harmony to carry forth their edgier musical explorations is a real blessing; they welcome the listener inside their sound world and make them a part of their sprawling musical narratives…

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".

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!?)…