Album Review: The Flower Kings - Look At You Now

The world is a very different place than when The Flower Kings became popular in prog circles, and even from when I first discovered them. I know I'm a different person in many ways, and those are not helpful to my relationship to the band's music. While I discovered them when "Desolation Rose" came out, everything since then has been a slow slide as I grow more and more impatient with prog music. I don't think it's my attention span getting shorter, but rather a realization on my part that I have so much music I could already be listening to, anything that wastes too much of my time isn't worth the effort anymore.

That has included many Flower Kings albums, which often stretch on for two discs and an hour and a half of music. They love their extended guitar solos and meandering noodling, which no longer holds any appeal for me. Few of those guitar solos have enough hook to them to replace a better written song, and I don't know if there's any album these days that can sustain itself for that long. The more you ask, the more you have to give.

This album condenses things, thankfully, but that doesn't do as much good as we might think. I was not very enamored by Roine Stolt's contributions to the latest Transatlantic album, and this record feels like an even softer version of that. 'Soft' is the operative word, as everything about this record floats along at a gentle lilt, with little of the music or vocals standing out to grab my attention.

The band's sound is more of a wash of sound than something I would call compelling. Melodies come and go, but leave no footprints in the dust. As song after song unfolds, I'm waiting to hear something compelling, the spark of an idea where I can tell what made the band feel the need to write a song from it. Those never really come, and instead this sounds more like a loose jam session of improv ideas that never got culled down to the best bits.

Then again, I realize I'm no longer the right audience for this kind of music, because I have grown oh so tired of listening to guitar players playing guitar for the sake of playing guitar. I need to hear the heartbeat of a song coming through every minute, and that's not what this kind of prog is all about. The Flower Kings are trying to take us on a trip through their creativity, but it's a slow boat and I don't enjoy the waves. Once you've seen the horizon from one angle, seeing the same thing from a slightly different place doesn't hold nearly as much appeal.

I appreciate that this is a more 'focused' version of The Flower Kings, but I still find myself unable to embrace what they're doing. The music doesn't do enough to engage me at first, let alone hold me all the way through. There isn't enough meat on this bone for my liking, so I can't say this is for anyone but the devoted prog fans.