Reviews: The Flower Kings, Oh Hiroshima, Deserted Fear, Kris Barras Band (Reviews By Matt Bladen)

The Flower Kings - By Royal Decree (Inside Out Music)

Ronie Stolt's The Flower Kings have been showing the world their organic, musically dense, poetic progressive rock that blends folk, symphonic, electronic, jazz, blues and funk. Like the classic bands of the 70's The Flower Kings have always had a keen ear for what works, their musical concoctions are packed full of delicate guitar lines, impenetrable walls of Hammond Organs and synths, soulful vocals and jazz-influenced bass and drum lines. 

On this 15th studio album they have done a lot of looking back, probably due to the pandemic, By Royal Decree is a mix of new songs and going back over older material that was left in Stolt's vault, in addition to going over this old material founding bassist Michael Stolt returns after 20 years to share bass and vocals with Jonas Reinhold. Now with so much material to sift through, it means that this record is a mammoth 92 minutes long across 18 tracks many of them stretching the run times in true prog style. Along with Stolt, Stolt and Reinhold is Mirko DeMaio (drums), Zach Kamins (keys), Hasse Fröberg (guitar/vocals) all of whom recorded the record in 2021 through a fully analogue mixing desk for an authentic sound that also brings back the sounds of their past. 

This is the running theme on this record, making feel as close to the early prog bands and their own first few records. Their tour for 2022 will see them playing songs from those early records. So By Royal Decree is really a retrospective record but with a mix of older and current material. It's a must for TFK fans, who will immerse themselves in all 92 minutes of it, however for anyone who may want to delve into The Flower Kings as a band it may be a record that's a little too specialist. Still a progressive rock masterclass, just one that takes a lot of investment. 7/10

Oh Hiroshima – Myriad (Napalm Records)

Ah Post-rock, guys and girls all staring intently at their instruments while crafting intricate, often totally instrumental soundscapes that bring a sense of the otherworldly. There are bands that do it brilliantly and some that meander a little too much, Oh Hiroshima are one of the bands that have found that sweet spot, where the music is enthralling but never spirals out of control in mess of reverb and single chord exploration. 

Following their 2019 release Oscillation, was always going to be a lofty task but with the pandemic, being a boon to bands like this I suspect, the twosome of Jakob Hemström (guitar/vocal/bass) and Oskar Nilsson (drums) had more time to craft a worthy follow up, that again sees them raising the bar on their craft.  At just 7 tracks in length, there’s little room for ditties, they need room to breathe, but never shift to extreme lengths most of the songs coming at around the 6 minute mark. The album is built around the cascading, rhythmic rumble of Nilsson’s drumming, he gets going on the shamanic Nour, continues with Ascension right up to Hidden Chamber. It’s this percussion technique that sets a continuation throughout this record, allowing Hemström to multilayer his guitars and basslines, fleshing out the musical backing with brass and strings for added drama. Vocally too he whispers into the mic only when necessary letting the music breathe. 

It feels more simplistic yet more experimental than before perhaps the fact this is their first record as a duo, since their bassist left meaning that they approached the song writing in a different way, adapting the post-rock ethos to some shoegaze, ambient and even some indie influences. Recorded by Kristian Karlsson (pg. lost, Cult Of Luna) and mixed/mastered by Cult Of Luna’s Magnus Lindberg; Myriad singles itself out as where Oh Hiroshima are going in the future, frenzied yet controlled, achingly mournful but driven by hope, this is their next chapter and I will be reading it multiple times this year! 8/10

Deserted Fear - Doomsday (Century Media Records)

German melodic death metal band Deserted Fear follow up their 2019 release Drowned By Humanity with this 2022 record Doomsday. An apt album title due to the current situation in the world, it seems as though Deserted Fear are deliberately trying to ring in the end times with this fifth album of vicious, guitar driven melodeath. The band are a trio comprised of Simon Mengs (drum), Fabian Hildebrandt (lead guitar/bass) and Manuel “Mahne” Glatter (vocals/guitar) but they make a mighty racket across the 48 minutes of this album. 

Its a sound that was born in the Gothenburg scene created by In Flames, whose Artifacts Of The Black Rain is covered here, and Dark Tranquillity, who the band are supporting on their upcoming German tour along with Ensiferum. Doomsday is the most eclectic record the band have created with a mixture of influences that comes from thrash, death, black and even some slick modern metal influences on Follow The Light That Binds and Voices Of Fire. Though with The One Desire, they certainly can still deliver some nasty guitar fueled melodeath. 

There's two intros on the record at the beginning and track 6 which help create atmosphere across the record, linking things together for a more consistent, inviting listening experience. The variation also helps with this because of their inability to tour, the band spent more time crafting this album than on previous ones, making sure that it had a much broader scope. Tracks such as Reborn Paradise have an emotive edge adding some of the doom stylings, while the title track is an evolution of the melodeath sound. Deserted Fear continue to adapt and improve their extreme metal sound, a mature, but still malicious melodeath record from these Germans. 8/10

The Kris Barras Band – Death Valley Paradise (Mascot Records)

Anyone who has been following the blog for a while will know that I was a keen supporter of Kris Barras around the time of his second album, I thought his style of blues rocking had the potential to see him become the British Bonamassa, however with time as so often happens that initial firebrand blues rock sound became diluted in search of a more radio-friendly hard rock style crafted almost exclusively for the Planet Rock audience. This is obvious on fourth album Death Valley Paradise, where nearly all traces of the blues are gone, replaced by that NWOCR sound that seems to be all the rage at the moment. 

Now I’m not saying that the music is bad, Barras is a good singer and excellent guitar player and his band comprised of long time rhythm guitarist Josiah J. Manning and new rhythm section Billy Hammett (Drums) and Kelpie Mackenzie (Bass), play a key part of how this album sounds, according to Barras who struggled with depression over the Covid period, so this darkness and despair was brought into Death Valley Paradise. These feelings were used to inspire a heavier styled record that has influence from Shinedown, Black Stone Cherry and even Fozzy, bands who the numerous song writing collaborators on this record have also written for. 

The idea was to craft big, heavy sounding rock songs and ballads fit for the arenas they now find themselves in, mission accomplished I’d say but by doing this that spark of individuality has diminished a little. The album is basically about triumph over adversity and with songs such as My Parade and Chaos, Barras and his band feel as if they are very much rising from uncertainty back to where they belong. Nothing ground-breaking on this album but it’s got songs that will go down well with the partisan audience that will inevitably go in early to watch the band support Thunder on their upcoming tour. If a slightly edgier NWOCR sound is what you’re looking for add The Kris Barras band to your list. 7/10