The Flower Kings
Waiting For Miracles

I'm one of those who followed the prog path in reverse, starting from progressive metal and then moving on to derivative prog-rock, then to the '80s neo-progressive and finally to classic '70s prog. And the Flower Kings were one of the bands that made me love the genre in its most classic form, I still remember when their often pompous and endless "bricks" ran on my pc. Then the discovery of the historic bands, particularly Yes with whom the Swedes seem more related, diminished my interest in them. I hadn't listened much to the past two albums, but now a bit of interest has reignited, and the latest release played on my player for quite some time between the end of last year and the beginning of the new one.

Prog is a pompous and ambitious genre, and we all know this; it's a genre that loves excess and grandeur... but even pompousness and excess sometimes require a limit. The Flower Kings have almost always exceeded this limit, releasing albums full of lavish symphonies often excessively long, their albums are energetic 70-minute meatballs, and if things go wrong, they're even double albums with over two hours of length, always and still characterized by blatantly derivative music heavily indebted to a '70s brand sound (Yes primarily), all stretched to the point of bursting, imploding on itself. A policy that probably kept several prog enthusiasts away from the band who, instead, would prefer to hear fresher or more measured groups.

The latest works, however, represent an attempt to lighten their offering, as if they had lost several points from their driving license and wanted to regain them. The previous "Desolation Rose" was already far from the heaviness that characterized the band's past. "Waiting for Miracles," the thirteenth studio album by the Swedish band, flows very well despite its 84-minute duration. It's the fifth time the Flower Kings play the double album card, but this time this choice does not translate into a brick that sits heavy on the stomach. Quite curious is the decision to split the album into two non-homogeneous discs, with the second CD grouping only the last 21 minutes of music; an intriguing solution, it's as if the second disc simply represents the "tail" of the album, an even somewhat clever choice that effectively gives the illusion of a less heavy album, there's a nice difference between finishing an album and saying "now we have another 45 minutes album ahead" and saying "now we await the last 21 minutes"... although this can be detrimental to those 21 minutes themselves, isolating them this way on a separate support can make them seem like "scraps," a discard from a card game, the second CD almost seems like a kind of bonus EP for those not satisfied with the first disc. I'd compare it to what happened with "The Incident" by Porcupine Tree, with four tracks placed on a separate CD even though they could have fit on one CD and which came after a very long suite that heavily overshadowed them, almost wanting to diminish them.

The aspects that make the listening experience smooth are nonetheless numerous, starting with the desire not to exaggerate the duration of the tracks; the longest track barely reaches 10 minutes, the shortest "longest track" in the group's discography, and the tracks exceeding 7 minutes are only 4 out of 15, 27% of the total, the second lowest concentration of long tracks in the group's discography, less only "Desolation Rose." But leaving aside the durations, we note that the band tries to avoid too marked, challenging, and redundant instrumental passages, smoothing and softening the work of each instrument and, in a certain sense, making the melody the protagonist. They also try not to fall victim to their rampant classicism, avoiding overemphasizing old organs and mellotrons, focusing heavily on synthesizers, often suave and caressing, modernized yet with a vintage melody, but often also edgy with sounds borrowed from darker electronics. We frequently find hypnotic and psychedelic electronic splashes, a kaleidoscope of sounds, solutions, and effects varied enough that it doesn't bore like other works of the group might; although prying Flower Kings from a certain classic bond remains impossible.

We might in a certain sense call it a "delicate" album that nonetheless abounds in appealing moments. The lighter and soothing melodies are particularly evident in tracks like "Vertigo," "The Bridge," "Sleep With the Enemy," and "The Crowning of Greed." Sometimes they try to become more pompous, as happens, for example, with the frantic foray into classical music in "Ascending to the Stars" or the captivating instrumental "The Rebel Circus," reaching its peak in the sick electronic and hallucinogenic jazz of "Spirals"; but even in these tracks, the band doesn't convey a sense of excess, even in their notes a sense of smoothness is felt. In any case, they remain simple episodes within an overall rather moderate album, they are tracks intended just to raise the crest in some moments, but it's a hormonal explosion that ends there. On the contrary, there is also space for a lively and elegant pop-rock episode called "Wicked Old Symphony," whereas among the very short tracks, a mention goes to the closing "Busking at Brobank," a 52-second acoustic march whistled to the sound of a theremin that reveals the group's experimental attitude. In any case, the track most explicitly centered on classic prog is undoubtedly "Miracles for America."

Perhaps the most solid and mature album by the Swedish band, which seems to have understood what it really wants and found the squaring of the circle, I really wouldn't have expected such a high rotation. Now it seems there's a new one in the works, and I'd say the interest is definitely more alive now.