The Flower Kings

瑞典这个北欧国家在90年代前卫摇滚复兴中始终扮演着一个重要角色，90年代早期在深受King Crimson风格影响的瑞典乐团Anekdoten以及Anglagard光环之后，The Flower Kings所处的位置似乎有些尴尬，但随着全世界新起的以Spock's Beard引领的新前卫摇滚浪潮之风下，The Flower Kings逐渐在瑞典乃至全世界站稳脚跟，并且在近两年，由于Spock's Beard中的核心人物Neal Morse的退出，The Flower Kings已经渐渐成为了主流前卫摇滚领域中的领军人物！
 
Roine Stolt是The Flower Kings的首脑，在1994年，他以个人名义发行了一张名为The Flower Kings的专集，尽管在记录上这并非TFK的首张专集，但所有人都可以认为这就是TFK的雏形，因为这个除了Bass和鼓手与现任不同的阵容已经维持了整整10年。当时Roine Stolt的理念是与70年代在欧洲相当著名的本国前摇乐团Kaipa相靠拢，其实Roine Stolt在1975年年仅19岁的时候就已经是Kaipa的主音吉他，看得出，他对Kaipa有着相当深厚的感情，乃至于在TFK已经相当成名了之后他还于2002和2003年参与录制了Kaipa时隔多年的新专集Notes From The Past（2002）、Keyholder（2003），可以说是帮助Kaipa获得了重生，与年少时的伙伴再次一起同台的感觉相信对他来说也是非常美妙。
 
Sweden played a crucial part in the progressive rock revival of the 1990s, but amid dark-sounding King Crimson-influenced bands like Anekdoten and Anglagard, the positive-thinking Yes-enlightened act the Flower Kings felt almost out of place. Yet, the Flower Kings became, along with the American Spocks Beard, the 90s prog rock band with the largest fan base, the biggest sales, and the widest international appeal.
 
The Flower Kings came to life in August 1994, but retrospectively, their first album came out before their inception. That year, guitarist/singer/composer Roine Stolt, who enjoyed relative European fame in the 1970s as a member of the Swedish progressive rock band Kaipa, brought together ex-Jonas Hellborg drummer Jaime Salazar and ex-Samla Mammas Manna percussionist Hans Bruniusson to record a solo album, The Flower King. Stolts music was graced by a Jon Anderson-like aura and combined complex structures with catchy heartfelt melodies, and the prog fans welcomed the album with open arms. Roine brought in brother Michael Stolt (bass, vocals) and longtime friend Tomas Bodin (keyboards) to perform the material live, and thus the Flower Kings were born and The Flower King, the album, is now usually perceived as the bands first.
 
Back in the World of Adventures was released in November 1995 on the bands own label, Foxtrot Music, and contained the stage favorite Big Puzzle, while the Flower Kings started to tour in Europe. It was shortly followed by Retropolis (May 1996), the bands most 70s-influenced album to date, which yielded The Judas Kiss and There Is More to This World, still arguably one of their best anthems. Retropolis helped the Flower Kings reach Japan, South America, and North America (especially Quebec). The mammoth two-CD set Stardust We Are, which included In the Eyes of the World, Church of Your Heart, and the 25-minute epic Stardust We Are, was released in 1997. With four albums (including one double CD) released in less than four years, music critics around the world started to wonder how Roine Stolt managed to write this fast. Obvious filler material on Stardust We Are had people thinking the band should have been a bit more selective and made it a one-CD affair. Still, the bands fan base was growing, as were the sales. A compilation album, Scanning the Greenhouse (containing a fantastic rendition of Genesis The Cinema Show) was released to prepare Americans for the bands first U.S. tour, and a limited-edition CD containing live improvisations and unreleased tracks was issued by Ipso Facto for the Quebec market, while Roine Stolt released his critically acclaimed solo album Hydrophonia — all in a years work.
 
Another two-CD set, Flower Power, saw the light of day in early 1999. Even more ambitious, it contained the 60-minute suite Garden of Dreams and the quirky Psychedelic Postcard, which paid tribute to one of Roines main (although rarely detected) influences: Frank Zappa. Flower Power was the bands first album to be released in the U.S. by Inside Out Music America, which acquired rights to the bands complete catalog for domestic distribution. The Flower Kings first live album, Alive on Planet Earth, was released in 2000 while Roine was touring with the supergroup Transatlantic (with Pete Trewavas of Marillion, Neal Morse of Spocks Beard, and Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater). A new studio album, titled Space Revolver, followed later that year with bassist Jonas Reingold replacing Michael Stolt. Unfold the Future appeared in 2002, with the live set Meet the Flower Kings following in 2003. Paradox Hotel was released in 2006.