Do you remember the moment you felt the exhilarating thrill of hearing music that utterly seduced you and made you fall in love with the band making it? Not far into the opening track, We Claim the Moon, the unmistakable sound of The Flower Kings cascades over you, a ‘welcome home’ smile of fond recognition spreading across your face, and the tingle of anticipation warms your soul.
We’re not talking about the layered melodies or the accomplished artistry which comes from mastering your craft so completely, skilful virtuosity becomes almost invisible. We’re talking about something more profound. We’re experiencing a band for whom progressive rock is as natural as the air we breathe, and for whom the ‘long-form’ structure of musical inventiveness is fundamental to everything they do. Then you remember, clear as day: this is why I fell in love with The Flower Kings in the first place.
Love is their 17th studio album. The music certainly challenges us. It requires a degree of attentiveness. It also entertains and enriches us with episodes of melodic brilliance and breathtaking musical vistas. But it also does something a lot rarer. It calls us to go beyond ourselves and gives us a vision along with the means of sustaining that vision.
Love is not just the title. It is the animating soul and spirit of what we are hearing. It holds our hand and takes us on a journey through abandonment and searching, through crises and rebuilding and provides a timely reminder that much like their music, it is love’s quest, love’s adventure, which is the point.
The opening chords of We Claim the Moon (Track 1) announce a jaunty, upbeat tempo, immediately opening out into those luscious, growling keys darting in and out of musical spaces before building into a signature wall of sound so distinctive of The Flower Kings. The shifting time signatures and contrasting transitions feel familiar, even comforting. But it’s at 3:48 where the magic happens – a deliberate callback chord structure creating an unmistakable echo of the past, and those beloved nostalgic associations start flooding back.
Yet from this moment of recognition, a new evolution grows. Lalle Larson’s keys assume a more discernible presence throughout, offering moments of artistry and flashes of creativity that feel both familiar and fresh. What we’re hearing isn’t slavish nostalgia — it’s an emerging evolution built on familiar foundations.
If We Claim the Moon announces the journey’s adventurous beginning, The Elder (Track 2) provides its spiritual quest. The change of pace is immediate – more reflective, less busy, with melody taking precedence over virtuosity. Here, it is the voice which carries the weight of the song, drenched with a world-weary pathos and yet still clinging to a thread of hope. “I’ve made my peace with those who’d done me wrong” – this is the voice of hard-won, hard-lived wisdom, the tale of someone who has, step by painful step, made the harrowing journey from abandonment to acceptance.
The track’s emotional core mirrors the album’s broader vision. The achingly beautiful guitar solo speaks to the pain of regret, while piano interludes form echoing refrains like reflections of sunlight on water. But it is not to last. At around the six-minute mark, tranquillity fades and menace enters, bringing a discomforting sense of ‘lostness’ which haunts so much of the album’s middle tracks. At 7:42, we find ourselves submerged in that echoing emptiness, a lone voice against a thumping bass bedrock, guitar and piano calling and responding across vast spaces.
Yet by 9:07, the way through emerges. “Here we are in silent trenches / Come this far – lived life let reckless / Waiting for the lights to change / I’m waiting for the outbound train / You found your way – So come what may / you’ve found your way.” Finding our way speaks of decisions made and directions decided. This is where the struggles lying at the heart of the album’s other tracks find the key to their resolution. The abandonment of How Can You Leave Us Now? (Track 3) transforms into hard-won acceptance, where the power of love reveals itself not as comfort but as the wisdom to keep moving forward and putting one foot in front of the other.
By the time we reach Walls of Shame (Track 11), we have traversed the rocky roads of recognition, struggle and wisdom. As we near journey’s end, transformation approaches. The track opens light and airy, a whispered vocal haunted by guitar interjections between silences, before a glorious thumping bass rhythm sets the pulse with drums accentuating the heartbeat of change. Layers of keys drizzle across the soundscape, creating the perfect backdrop for the album’s most direct exhortation: ‘Just open your eyes – and you can do better.’
But it’s the exquisite guitar work that truly elevates this moment. Dripping with emotion, possessing soul-aching beauty, it entrances and consumes our attention with the kind of glorious musicianship that reminds you why instrumental virtuosity matters in progressive rock, not as showing off, but as the vehicle for experiences words alone cannot convey. The keys swell in support, building toward a magnificent crescendo. “It’s the same old struggles – same old troubles hit you hard, as time goes by”. The road we tread isn’t easy. But the prize which awaits – “And for those forsaken – there are spells to break / The great awakening – wait for you – As long as the aim is true.” This is love’s imperative.
Final track Considerations (Track 11) is not an ending but more of an arrival. Triumphant and assured, it carries the confidence of a journey nearing completion – not because all the questions, doubts and uncertainties have been resolved, but because we now understand it is the quest of love itself we have embraced.
Love, as an album, lifts the spirit. Listening to it feels like experiencing completion. But don’t make the mistake of thinking the journey is over. The opposite is true: richness comes from understanding love’s considerations are with us throughout a lifetime. The Flower Kings have given us more than an album – they’ve provided a timely reminder that in a world of walls, limits, shame and abandonment, the act of love, of walking beside each other as fellow travellers on the same road, shows us ways of being better tomorrow than we are today.
TRACK LISTING
01. We Claim The Moon (6:34)
02. The Elder (11:09)
03. How Can You Leave Us Now!? (5:55)
04. World Spinning (2:10)
05. Burning Both Edges (7:49)
06. The Rubble (4:23)
07. Kaiser Razor (2:32)
08. The Phoenix (3:40)
09. The Promise (3:58)
10. Love Is (6:06)
11. Walls Of Shame (7:00)
12. Considerations (10:14)
Total Time – 74:34
MUSICIANS
Mirko DeMaio – Drums, Percussion
Hans Fröberg – Vocals, Guitar
Lalle Larson – Grand Piano, Rhodes Piano, Hammond B3, Synthesisers
Michael Stolt – Bass, Moog Bass, Vocals
Roine Stolt – Vocals, Electric & Acoustic 6 & 12 String Guitars, Ukulele
~ With:
Hasse Bruniusson – Percussion
Jannica Lund – Vocals
Aliaksandr Yasinski – Accordion
ADDITIONAL INFO
Record Label: InsideOut Music
Country of Origin: Sweden
Date of Release: 2nd May 2025
LINKS
The Flower Kings – Website | Facebook | Bandcamp (IOM) | YouTube | X