THE FLOWER KINGS
Waiting For Miracles INSIDEOUT
HOMAGES ITS HERITAGE, WHILE PULLING THREEPOINT TURNS.
A rose by any other name: Stolt stuns again.
It’s been a mildly bewildering few years for Flower Kings loyalists, with main man Roine Stolt taking various sabbaticals, guesting with A-listers, saying he was done with being in a group, hedging his bets by touring as The Flower Kings Revisited, then returning like a prodigal son to the fold and releasing this album under the band’s more usual name. So it’s the Swedish outfit’s 13th, or 14th if last year’s as Roine Stolt’s The Flower Kings counts. Which it probably should. Whatever tweaks are made to the moniker, a Stolt-led album is a guarantee of a certain style, sound and substance. His exeats with Transatlantic, Steve Hackett and Jon Anderson (the 2016 Anderson/Stolt album Invention Of Knowledge is a thing of wonder) have only further improved his perfect grasp of what makes a long-form prog track hold attention and avoid waffle. It’d be a lie to declare his detours have expanded his horizons: Waiting For Miracles does what he always does, and very well. Yet he retains the knack of knowing when a movement, or a solo, has gone on for just the right time, and when the next shift should come in. If you’re a fan of his own old-school heroes – Genesis, Yes, Floyd, even Procol Harum – this is high-grade methadone.
That’s not meant to damn the former teen prodigy’s music with faint praise. The album’s lush and fluid enough to stand on its own terms. Recorded in Benny from Abba’s Stockholm studio (or one of them), it feels relaxed and confident enough to not stress over whether we’re in realms of ground-breaking iconoclasm. The sense of effortless ease lends it great charm, and sometimes you want comfy slippers, not pinching fashion statements. And while homaging prog’s heritage, this pulls off enough three-point turns to keep you guessing. Its themes, touching on America’s social crises and global greed and hypocrisy, are both evergreen and current.
Ably assisted by co-vocalist Hasse Fröberg, keyboardist Zach Kamins (who sprinkles in knowing winks to Tony Banks) and the strong and stable rhythm section of Jonas Reingold and Mirko DeMaio, Stolt seems at home delivering guitar solos of graceful touch, flawless without feeling sterile. Black Flag is a master class in marrying melody and momentum, while Miracles For America has brief cheeky nods to Yes and even The Nice before gliding into a smooth cruise through time-honoured tropes and finding that most crucial of prog necessities – the affecting outro, the gratifying resolution. Vertigo spins and sways with both melancholy and propulsion. Roine Stolt’s garden is blooming afresh.