Banks of Eden - The Flower Kings

Banks of Eden (The Flower Kings, 2012)

1. Numbers - 25:26
2. For the Love of Gold - 7:25
3. Pandemonium - 6:09
4. For Those About to Drown - 7:06
5. Rising the Imperial - 7:52

Bonus Disc:
1. Illuminati - 5:56
2. Fireghosts - 5:50
3. Going Up - 5:10
4. LoLines - 4:26

Without the bonus disc, this is the shortest Flower Kings album on record (pun intended), clocking in at just around the 53-minute mark with only five songs. Another solid offering with melodic guitar, swirling synth and organ, mind-blowing bass, nimble drums, and soaring vocal harmonies, Banks of Eden's only flaw might be its familiarity. But what's wrong with a visit from an old friend, even if you talk about the same things you talked about the last time you got together?

The opening epic "Numbers" is the main event - it goes through various permutations, starting with a classical flourish then navigating several successive movements and styles.  Gorgeous balladry, metallic attack, chill zoning, delicate harmonies, and creative instrumental interplay are all bound together seamlessly by a few well-chosen motifs (including the main theme from "Rising the Imperial"). Lyrically, it deals with war, inflation, and dim prospects for the future, all sugarcoated by musical luminosity. It's one of the band's more successful epics, coming on the heels of the self-conscious, pasted-together "Love is the Only Answer" from 2007's The Sum of No Evil.

The disconnect between sunny music and gloomy lyrics continues through the rest of the album. Well, it's not really a disconnect - the two warring moods are combined by passionate performance. The second half of the album offers four solid mid-length progressive rock songs. Each has its own special character, though they may not add much uncharted territory to the Flower Kings' (admittedly massive) body of work. Jonas Reingold's expansive bass guitar on "For Those About to Drown" stands out, as does bandleader Roine Stolt's evocative guitar solo at the close of "Rising the Imperial."  Hasse Froberg sings his heart out, and Tomas Bodin adds ever-delightful color and virtuosity with his array of keyboards. The only misstep for me is the robo-vocal on "Pandemonium," but the boys have to have a little fun. It can't all be serious "save the prog" standard-bearing.

At first I wondered why the songs from the bonus disc hadn't been added to the album proper, but they really don't fit.  They're just some nice little songs the band enjoyed. "Illuminati" is a tasty jazz waltz with some sweet guitar. "Fireghosts" and "Going Up" are solid rock songs that the Kings have fiddled with in their trademark way. Sadly, "LoLines" is a weird throwaway, with lots of bizarre noise and aggression to no purpose. All told, this is a welcome new offering from the reigning monarchs of modern progressive rock. Long live the Kings!

Arbitrary rating (album): 4.5 out of 5 well-chosen motifs
Arbitrary rating (bonus): 4 out of 5 nice little songs

The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands - Stephen King

The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands (King, 1991)

Though everything that has happened before has been necessary to the story, The Waste Lands feels like the true beginning. We get some concrete information about what the Dark Tower might be and how to get there. Some of the history and mythology of Roland's world starts to take definite shape, and our characters are given a direction. Best of all, the action keeps us driving onward.

As the characters travel through an area known as Mid-World, we start to get a sense of how the world has "moved on".  All around there are remnants of fantastic machines, artificial intelligences created by an organization called North Central Positronics. These remnants of technology are all gradually breaking and winding down, while primitive people wage war in the cluttered streets of a ruined city, with cars, TVs, appliances, and computers stacked as so much rusting trash barricading the streets. Roland and his companions are hailed by some as true gunslingers, defenders of "The White", while others seek to destroy them and prevent their quest.

The Waste Lands is a classic fantasy/science-fiction adventure, with portals between worlds, dream visions, warps in time, lost civilizations, and telepathic connections. Derelicts from our culture surface in mysterious ways - a Nazi plane, a book of riddles, the drum track to a  ZZ Top song. There are also a lot of well-placed literary references: T.S. Eliot, Shirley Jackson, William Golding, and Richard Adams are all appreciated one way or another.

What truly makes this a good book, though, is the way it explores the crannies of human nature. The people of the city of Lud (excellent reappropriation of the term "Luddite", by the way) embody the absolute moral low to which man can sink, yet even in their depravity we see glimpses of half-obscured humanity. On the other side of the coin, the family formed by Roland, Eddie, Susannah, and Jake reveal goodness and self-sacrifice, but nuanced with the imperfections of all human love.

Arbitrary rating: 4.5 out of 5 glimpses of half-obscured humanity

The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three - Stephen King

The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three (King, 1987)

Now this is more like it. A desperately injured Roland must march up the coast of the Western Sea searching for his fate. As foretold by the man in black, Roland finds doors through which he will draw companions for his quest, doors bearing the names "The Prisoner", "The Lady of Shadows", and "Death". Each door opens into New York City in a different year, and the people Roland draws are already connected in ways they cannot imagine.

I find The Drawing of the Three a much better story than The Gunslinger. Action, suspense, creative fantasy, tight plot, bizarre creatures, and most important of all, relatable human characters make this a great read. In the previous book, Roland was a soulless, single-minded killing machine, almost immortal. In this book, he is immediately humanized when a creature from the sea (dubbed a "lobstrosity") critically injures him, and his humanity continues to come through as he interacts with smart-mouthed heroin addict Eddie Dean, wheelchair-bound schizophrenic Odetta Holmes/Detta Walker, and Jack Mort, a cold-blooded psychopath from the 1970s.

We don't learn much more about Roland's past in this book, or about what the Dark Tower is or why he is seeking it. We learn a lot more about Eddie and Odetta/Detta, where they come from and how they cope with life in a seemingly alien land. The action keeps things rolling along toward a surprising and satisfying conclusion, where quick thinking and fate intertwine to save the characters from death and bring together what Roland calls ka-tet: one from many, a group of people bound together by a single purpose. But the ka-tet is not complete yet, and Roland's actions have caused a rift in time...

Arbitrary rating: 4.5 out of 5 lobstrosities