The Flower Kings announce new album

The Flower Kings have announced that they will release their latest album, By Royal Decree, through InsideOut Music on March 4.

The new album, the band's fifteenth studio release, sees the return of founding bass player Michael Stolt (while the picture above shows longstanding bass player Jonas Reingold with the band, this is all the band's label furnished the magazine for this new press release!). He joins the remainder of the current the line-up of Mirko DeMaio on drums, Zach Kamins on keyboards, Hasse Fröberg on vocal & guitar and Roine Stolt on vocal & guitars.

“It is great to reconnect with my brother as a bass player - yes we’re brothers in a familial sense - but we’re also ’brothers' in our teenage years’ journey of exploring bands like Yes, Genesis, Zappa, King Crimson, Weather Report, etc., so the reference points are evident," says Roine Stolt. "We both know each other’s musical path so well, which means we also know where we’re going."

The band convened in the middle of 2021 at Fenix Studios in Sweden to record through the fully analogue Rupert Neve mixing desk. The album also features beautiful cover art, once again created by Denver-based artist Kevin Sloan which you can view below.

At the same time the band have announced a short run of Swedish dates for March 2022 which will see the band revisiting their early years, performing tracks from Retropolis, Stardust We Are, Flower Power, Space Revolver and Back In The World Of Adventures. This will coincide with the release of newly remastered editions of The Flower Kings albums on CD & Vinyl later in 2022.

The Flower KIngs will play:
Mar 30: Katalin, Uppsala
Mar 31: Musikens Hus, Gothenburg
Apr 1: Södra Teatern, Stockholm

Pre-orders and the band's first new single arrive on December 10,

Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.