Artist.......: The Flower Kings
Album........: The Sum Of No Evil
Label........: Inside Out
Genre........: Progressive Rock
Catnr........: n/a
source.......: CDDA
rip.date.....: Sep-07-2007
str.date.....: 000-00-0000
quality......: VBR/44.1Hz/Joint-Stereo
Url..........: n/a

track  title                                          time

 01.   One More Time                                 13:05
 02.   Love Is The Only Answer                       24:29
 03.   Trading My Soul                               06:25
 04.   The Sum Of No Reason                          13:26
 05.   Flight 999 Brimstone Air                      05:01
 06.   Life In Motion                                12:34

                                            Runtime  75:00 min
                                            Size     109,10 MB


Release Notes:

First a brief note on the album title and its
slightly unusual history, because initially, the
new Flower Kings opus was to be entitled simply
'Love'. Main composer and producer Roine Stolt
says. "I intended to call the recording just 'Love'
until I read with a surprise that The Beatles were
releasing a new album with that title, so I guess
the universe wasn't big for that much ´love` in one
year. So by twisting the idea a bit, I came up with
the alternative title The Sum Of No Evil, which
sort of equals 'Love'. It also gave us a great
platform for using some of Ed Unitsky`s surreal art
for the cover, that ´fish-bus` is funny and in tune
with the hippie and flower power vibe but yet a bit
of surreal Monty Python style too. There are way
too many dark serious melodramatic bands out there,
we wanted to be the colourful, friendly
alternative."

Their latest album, The Sum Of No Evil, is a
perfect example of a timeless prog rock release
that easily lives up to classics such as Lamb Lies
Down On Broadway or Yessongs. Stolt refers to the
album as "Flower Kings to the max", explaining: "We
wanted to make a real hardcore symphonic rock and
prog album. We took away all the pop, the jazz and
the experimental or ambient stuff and concentrated
on the pure prog that we do best." An apt
description of the almost 75 (!) minutes of playing
time and the six expansive tracks. "To make all
this a real trip for the prog rock fan we have
worked in a studio that specializes on 60's &70's
vintage recording equipment, plus we used lots of
real vintage analogue keyboards, Hammond organ,
Wurlitzer, Rhodes and grand pianos plus lots of
Mini Moog and old tube amplifiers for the guitars,"
says Stolt.

"Any fan of early 70's prog up until the first UK
album should love this album," The Flower Kings
mastermind reckons of the effective depth of The
Sum Of No Evil. "The trademarks are the melodies,
the mix of intricate, busy prog-fusion and grand
symphonic pieces. The album has some hints of
Stardust We Are and Retropolis perhaps, but also
has a lot in common with the two Transatlantic
studio albums." The consistency with which The
Flower Kings have translated their vision of
atmospheric and multi-faceted rock music is
unmistakeable. More than ever before, the musicians
have relied on their self-imposed "purity law",
concentrating entirely on the symphonic and classic
prog rock ideas. "I suppose the way I write is the
trademark," says Stolt. "I mean, you cannot get
away from yourself, I cannot change that much. As
usual I had way too much material. I also invited
the rest of the band to contribute their songs, but
this time they didn't come up with much, they just
seemed all very happy working mainly on what I had
written, as it was sort of just what we were aiming
for, it had all the elements that take us to Flower
Kings to the max."

Roine is referring to epic numbers such as the
multi-layered 'One More Time' or the accessible,
atmospherically dense 'Trading My Soul'. At the
centre of the album is the almost 25-minute 'Love
Is The Only Answer', an eventful journey through
the history of this musical genre, with
contemporary arrangements and topical themes with
both Stolt and Hasse Fröberg contributing vocals.
"As always, my lyrics try to be uplifting, but they
also try to understand every angle of human
behaviour and portray us as we are: earthbound, yet
divine." On the other hand, there's the unusual
'Flight 999 Brimstone Air', an instrumental track
contributed by keyboardist Tomas Bodin. "It has
quite a weird middle section, where our drummer
Zoltan really shines in a sort of solo free-tempo
thing, while bassist Jonas Reingold plays an
ostinato in a mean atonal kind of Zappa/Crimson
style and percussionist Hasse Bruniusson adds all
his audio weirdness. Not easy to play, not easy to
dance to but we wanna keep the audience on their
toes, because that's the spirit of progressive
rock."

The discussion about the pure doctrine of prog rock
is as old as the genre itself. Starting with King
Crimson through Camel to Marillion, it has always
been debatable exactly how progressive prog rock
should be to deserve its name. For Roine Stolt,
guitarist, vocalist and composer with Swedish band,
The Flower Kings, all these considerations are
unnecessary. Over the years, Stolt has developed
his own, unmistakeable songwriting style, a unique
signature that leaves no doubt and has found
countless fans all over the world. Although the
contemporary scene may be developing into a tougher
direction, the media demanding innovation and new
impulses, The Flower Kings are always at their best
when they don't give a damn about supposedly new
trends but simply continue to do what they do best,
grand vintage style symphonic prog rock and this
album proves it, they indeed are the Kings of prog
2007, by a good margin.