It’s probably accepted by many people who have followed the career of The Flower Kings that the prime years for them were the albums that ranged from the official band debut, ‘Back in the world of Adventures’ (1995) through to the peak of the era ‘Space Revolver’ (2000).

The work that followed on from this time was by no means less prolific and has examples of some of their best moments however there was a sense that some of the spark and sheer wonderment of the earlier work was lacking. Indeed by 2007 the experience seemed exhausted for some, with the feeling that the music was going through the motions and as a result the band was put on a break for the next five years.

Last year the return of the regular line-up produced ‘The Banks of Eden’ (2012) which signaled a new charge driven in part by the lively and talented drummer Felix Lehrmann. The heavier, gutsy sound was a continuation of the harder edge that had shaped the group over the past decade, with all the elements that made up The Flower Kings still present.

Fast forward to now and the new release, ‘Desolation Rose’ and we see that the band have embarked on a new methodology which ironically provides the listener with 60 minutes of familiar music which firmly places it high up among the bands aforementioned peak period. Rather than arriving at the studio with the new material prepared, the approach was much more of an organic, cohesive effort of ideas and creativity. The results are exciting and varied and yet the sound is pure Flower Kings, pure Prog and kingly epic.

An initial first glance at the track listings and the die-hard fan might begin to wonder where the regular 25 minute song is this time around. But fear not, Desolation Rose is essentially a continual piece where the melodies and passages that open the first half are revisited in the closing sections. A powerful ascending refrain, very typically Flower Kings, crops up from time to time, effectively bringing it together and ensuring a neatly stitched continuity. The tracks bleed into each other like chapters in a novel adding to the overall joined up assembly. After several listens it begins to feel similar to ‘Garden of Dreams’ from ‘Flower Power’ (1999) in its journey-like experience. The connection to this album is likely emphasised in the input from Thomas Bodin who like ‘Flower Power’ has had a bigger contribution this time in the making of ‘Desolation Rose’.
Bodin’s contributions are spectacular, providing a dazzling symphonic base for the frequently soaring guitar from Stolt. The stand out moments from him are everywhere, but ‘Desolation Road’ (not rose) is perhaps one of the greatest of them, from the gentle piano opening to the glorious choral symphonies – “While the road to desolation….lingers on….” and finishing with a growling angry wild animal of an organ over a pounding Lehrmann beat .

However the darker themes around the realities of war and suffering contrast the dream like qualities of Garden and are more evenly presented than their earlier opus too. That said, after many listens to the ambiguous lyrics and there is still uncertainty about the imagery and meanings. Yet this is a good thing, rather like sitting at an abstract painting in a gallery and seeing something new each time.
It is clear enough to see though that ‘Desolation Rose’ is TFK’s outcry and dismay at the world and its problems. Particularly conflict, and the senselessness of it. The latter is dealt with in ‘White Tuxedos’, a bleak picture of the inevitable conclusions of war, the title referring to the shroud of white over the dead. It’s a tale where there are no winners, neither from civilians or the soldiers who are sent to the four corners of the earth to fight under a flag of peace. The looping mantra of Nixon telling us of his desire for peace over and over again is a particularly chilling bookend to the track.

Following the intensity of White Tuxedos there is the almost certain contender for some of the finest Flower Kings magic anywhere. ‘Resurrected Judas’ ( him again) features some sublime guitar from Stolt over with a driving middle section instrumental, underpinned by some incredible bass and drums which is classic TFK, with shades of Genesis from a time when they made your skin tingle.

The darkest moments of this album are still matched with some regular TFK celebration at the beauty of the universe and the view from space at the earth. In ‘Blood of Eden’, our home is presented, still green and beautiful, -“We are Stardust and we are sun kissed”)- and we hear a pleading call to the heavens to a higher power to provide an answer to the problems we make.

Somewhat coldly though we are returned to the reality of the world in the closing gospel-like lament of ‘Silent Graveyards’-“in silent graveyards we look for saviours” – a reprise of the title track. The lonely desperation builds towards the finale where there is a hopeful prayer for a promised land and for an end to suffering, closing with a desperate agonising scream, from the impressive vocal abilities of Hasse Fröberg. There probably isn’t a Flower Kings album that closes as powerful as this, with the exception of the majestic end of ‘Stardust We Are’ (1997)

Without doubt the band have produced something spectacular again with this album,  If there is such a thing as a flawless release this would be nudging to be a member of that club. Quite how they have pulled it off again is a mystery as it was written and produced in a time frame that is almost beyond belief. Much more than a stop gap between now and the next Transatlantic, this is an album that should be regular favourite for many fans and still talked about as one of the very best.

So, here is the eagerly-awaited new release from The Fierce and the Dead, their first on Bad Elephant Music, and it’s difficult to imagine a more appropriate title.  Whatever else might be meant by the title, the music that you’ll find here is quite rightly described as “spooky action.”

Those who were paying attention probably caught the effusive note that I wrote for Progarchy back in May, just after I had really discovered TFATD.  I was ushered into this sound-world from the antechamber of guitarist Matt Stevens’ solo recordings (apparently, just as Matt himself fell into TFATD).  Do you remember that scene from the Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy opens the door from the spooky (artfully unsettling) black-and-white Kansas landscape onto the spooky (attractive, but even more unsettling?) color landscape of Oz?  That first experience was, for me, that powerful, that attractive, and that blissfully unsettling.

Does Spooky Action live up to the expectation set by its predecessors?  No.  “Live up to” is (if I may resort to somewhat technical language here) totally lame.  What we have in the music of TFATD, and what shines as brightly as we might have hoped on this new set, is the spooky action that is music-making.  Not just writing songs and playing them.  Not just outstanding playing (though it certainly is that too).  The music that these guys make is a sort of alchemy, transforming sonic base metals into gold.  Gold, that is, of the sort that gives in just the right way when you give it a trial bite.

Naturally, a number of earlier influences make themselves known in these tracks.  As with earlier TFATD, I hear the sort of minimalist spirit that made its way so strikingly from Steve Reich into the early XTC.  I hear the grungy (not grunge, but grungy) soil-like qualities of early 1970’s King Crimson.  I hear collages of textured audio drawn from some of the same esoteric tomes consulted earlier by Sonic Youth.  But what makes the musical action here so spooky is the alchemical feel, the je ne sais quoi that makes the sounds you are hearing music in the deepest and richest sense.  Rhythmic complexity doesn’t come across here as contrived, as “lookie what we can do that isn’t 4/4,” but as a breathless invitation to join the band in an invigorating dip into a pool of ecstatic expression.  The making of music should be a spooky action, and here it is so.

Do any of the tracks on Spooky Action have weaknesses?  Limitations?  Faults?  I bet I could find some if I keep listening.  But some music gives up its weaknesses early on, and having listened to Spooky Action twice now, it gives with an open, immediate generosity and profundity that outshines about everything new that I’ve heard lately, except perhaps the  very different but equally enthralling sounds of Big Big Train.  If the first listens are considered as a surface, at which I splash tentatively, gently lowering my face into the liquid warmth, then I see no immediate evidence that it has a bottom.  There’s no measure for its depth available to the naked ear.

Having some familiarity with prior work by TFATD and by Matt Stevens, I suspect that one of the main ingredients in its depth is an overt avoidance of excess gravity.  (Hmm. Can an avoidance be overt?  I think it is here.)  This is music that reaches the depth and richness it reaches precisely because it does not take itself too seriously.  These guys are having fun, and that’s one of the keys to their achievement of a nearly perfect level of seriousness.  The shortness of the tracks (especially by prog standards) enhances the intensity of the fun but fierce and deadly seriousness.

At a time when a fair amount of good music is being released at a fairly steady rate, The Fierce and the Dead have already made recordings that stand out, and by my initial listenings, Spooky Action is no disappointment.  Matt Stevens, Kevin Feazey, Steve Cleaton and Stuart Marshall are an amazing unit.

Listen to it!  And in case you haven’t seen it yet, here again is their delightful video for “Ark”:

I appreciate it has been a while but life ‘n’ stuff keeps getting in the way of the fun stuff like writing for progarchy and whatnot. Plus my laptop dumped all my saved settings so whereas before I had a single button click to get here I’ve had to try to find the dashboard by trial and error (aka google). Anyhoo, not a  lengthy piece first time up but a few words on my most prized possession, a gadget called a Brennan JB7. A shameless plug I know but I am very fond of it. I get in from work, press one button (one button solutions always work well for me) and it begins to shuffle through about 1500 albums, allowing me to hear stuff I haven’t heard for years or, as has happened tonight, stuff that I grew up with. In this case it is 2112 from All The World’s A Stage, the first ‘proper’ album I ever owned. Imagine a freckly teenage boy in grim, grimy industrial northern England in late 1977/early 1978. You have that image? Good, then I’ll begin. Spitting, snarly school friends had taken to sticking safety pins through parts of themselves and calling themselves punks. They listened to music in the common room that involved people shouting, swearing and clanging away on what sounded like pots and pans. I, on the other hand, ‘wished it might come to pass’, and it did. In the form of Rush. Rush, thanks to my friend Robert Hudson (who had an older brother) begat Yes, who begat Genesis who begat ELP et al. Blue Oyster Cult I discovered all by my self but that’s another story for another time.

And now all that accumulated loveliness from the past 35 years or so is now stored on a box about the size of a hardback book. And not a very thick one at that. Thus far this evening it has already thrown Strangefish, Manning, The Watch, Kaipa and Blue Oyster Cult out at me. It was when 2112 came on, however,  that I felt compelled to write something, to get back on the horse so to speak. I have a huge pile of new CDs from the likes of The Tangent, Thumpermonkey, Shineback, Be Bop Deluxe to name but a few to load onto the beast, so shall try to convert some of my evenings doing so into witty and erudite passages for the good folks at Progarchy. Now that I’ve discovered out how to log onto the site again, that is.

Until then I shall bid you all a fond evening.