A Quest for Prog 15: The Flower Kings - Back in the World of Adventures

"A Quest for Prog" is a series of 50 Progressive Rock reviews to be written over a year.  The band selection is taken from the book in the first post on this blog.  And the albums I am reviewing is based on the highest user ratings for each band on Progarchives.com.

The Flower Kings - Back in the World of Adventures (1995)

Produced by Roine Stolt & Don Azzaro

Hans Fröberg – Lead & backing vocals

Roine Stolt – Vocals, guitars, keyboards, bass

Tomas Bodin – Keyboards

Michael Stolt – Bass

Jaime Salazar – Drums

Hans Bruniusson – Percussion, drums

Ulf Wallander – Soprano saxophone

Track listing:

01. World Of Adventures (13:39)

02. Atomic Prince/Kaleidoscope (7:51)

03. Go West Judas (7:49)

04. Train To Nowhere (3:51)

05. Oblivion Road (3:49)

06. Theme For A Hero (8:34)

07. Temple Of The Snakes (1:25)

08. My Cosmic Lover (6:48)

09. The Wonder Wheel (4:19)

10. Big Puzzle (13:34)

Released in 1995 “Back in the World of Adventures” is the debut album by Swedish band The Flower Kings.  The band formed in 1994 as a backing band for guitarist Roine Stoltas as he toured his solo album “The Flower King”.  The band has been extremely prolific releasing 10 albums between 1995 and 2007.

The album begins with “World Of Adventures” which is a pretty punchy rock tune.  The song is a mix of Dream Theater and Electric Light Orchestra.  The production this tune is quite full on and at point a bit over the top.  The guitars sound like early 90’s Scorpions and I gotta say right now I wasn’t a fan of Roine Stolt’s guitar through this whole record.  There are some nice kind of Celtic/Folky sections which are really well played and are a nice change in the song.

Next is “Atomic Prince/Kaleidoscope”.  The start of this song is really strong with the Keyboards and Drums creating a nice groove that is unfortunately ruined when the guitars come in.  The track has a 70’s era Prog sound which is driven by the keyboards.  It has some nice movement and the breakdown in the track is really good.  The song ends with some classical guitar which just comes out of the blue.  It’s some nice guitar playing just seems seems to have no relation to the rest of the tune.

A Jethro Tull tune seems to have been mistakenly added to this album called “Go West Judas”.  All joking aside this song sounds a whole lot like late 80’s Jethro Tull even down to Hans Fröberg being a dead ringer for Ian Anderson.  The song has a good riff and is really up beat but the song does go on a bit.  For some reason Judas Priests “A Touch Of Evil” comes to mind when I was listening to this song not in style but there parts that remind me of it. 

The blatant radio single “Train To Nowhere” follows.  Not much to say about this one but if you listened to rock radio in the 90’s think what a stereotypical radio ballad by a rock was and you get the picture.

“Theme For A Hero” is next.  This track reminded me of Steve Vai’s “Passion & Warefare” album and the kind of music you would get at a Cirque du Soleil show.  Overblown guitar playing but the keyboards are strong on this one.  The best part of the track is the last few minutes with which features Keyboards and some great Drumming.

The interlude “Temple Of The Snakes” is a short interlude that sounds like incidental music from an film.  Cheesy keyboards but kind of dramatic at the same time.

80’s pop rock appears as “My Cosmic Lover”.  The track has that processed and clinical drum and bass grooves that so much popular 80’s music had.  The melody is lifted directly from George Harrison's “Within You Without You” and with some of the lyrics sounds deceptively similar.

Next is “The Wonder Wheel”.  This track is quite calm and relaxed.  The drums and the keyboards show restraint.  There is a Dire Straits feel to it and even the guitars are decent here.  The song builds and comes to a crescendo before coming back down.

The last track on the album is “Big Puzzle”.  It begins with and all to brief Tubular Bell like keyboard section.  Again this is ruined by the guitars.  The track is quite jazzy but it seems that the band was sharing my feelings of being over this album by this point.  None of the bands playing is interesting even the drums and keyboards which have been so good elsewhere.  The track goes on for a long time and just doesn’t do anything.

This album really dragged on for me.  I liked some of the early material (“World Of Adventures” & “Go West Judas”) but as it went I just lost interest.  The silly attempts at commercial tracks didn’t help their cause either.   

3/10