The Flower Kings | LOVE Review

by Griff Stevens

In Carl Jung’s Red Book, he writes, “I found in myself a hitherto unknown and frightening God.” It’s in this terrain; the numinous, the shadowed, the transcendent—that The Flower Kings’ LOVE situates itself. Their seventeenth studio album is not merely a continuation of prog rock’s grand tradition; it is a spiritual document, a musical mandala radiating twelve reflections on the archetype of love. Not the love of romance or sentimentality, but the Love that eclipses fear, dissolves ego, and transfigures suffering into light.

At 75 minutes, LOVE invites full immersion. There’s a reverence here, an unhurried, cosmic patience, that speaks to the band’s enduring alignment with the ethos of the ’60s and ’70s. This is not a retro album; its memory pulls the old forms to be reawakened to reflect new initiations.

“We Claim the Moon” is where the journey begins its ascent. A bold guitar-and-bass riff defines the surface tension like the first breath after spiritual inertia. It is music of intent, tones of proclamation as invocation. The melody rises in solar spirals, suggesting the dawning of a new inner epoch. The song’s many shits and patterns reflect agency in the unconscious: a willingness to confront the feminine, the mysterious, the cyclical.

We meet the Wise Old Man archetype in full regalia in “The Elder.” The instruments layer to form the edges of cognition; voices layer like echoes in the chamber of the psyche. Over 11 minutes, the song drifts through realms, some pastoral, some lively, all mapping the nonlinear nature of progressive rock. The Elder speaks in symbols, not syntax. The music honors that.

The wheel of samsara turns in “World Spinning.” This instrumental passage uses analog textures, Moogs, flutes, as alchemical dust to conjure time loops and soul drift. It plays like a spinning top: focused and kinetic. “Burning Both Edges” flows with vocal tones and harmonies. The song dances between serenity and dissonance, its passages offering lines of virtuosic melodies. This is the confrontation: ego, fear, desire; all illuminated and burned.

Next, we stand in the aftermath. The title, “The Rubble,” is enough to conjure a psychic wasteland, yet the music resists despair. The textures are careful, almost delicate, as though the band is sifting through memory, picking up fragments of meaning among collapsed structures. It is a pause, an archetypal Death card, not a conclusion, but an invitation to rebuild.

“Kaiser Razor” is another developing instrumental interlude that acts like a musical moment of clarity: the cutting away of illusion. There’s a sense of precision here, perhaps a commentary on the tyranny of thought, or the need to pierce false selves. Its intertwining melodies of guitar and keyboard are its force.

The title track, “Love Is,” presents a multi-layered song form. The music acts as a principle of change, a field, a force, an ever-present undercurrent beneath all struggle and story. The composition is mesmerizing, hypnotic in its unfoldment. This is the axis upon which progressive rock turns.

“Considerations” has spiraling guitar lines, keyboard flurries, and a textured rhythm section. All previous themes reappear like old dreams remembered in clarity. The drama here is not performative; it is internal. This track feels like a built-up to form the genesis of the next chapter from The Flower Kings.

The Flower Kings’ LOVE is progressive rock that dares to feel deeply, to build cathedrals where others build walls. For progressive rock fans, LOVE is a valuable addition to the collection.

Artist: The Flower Kings
Album: Love
Label: InsideOutMusic