Originally released to a woefully small amount of fanfare last year, Flowers and Lies is now getting a much-deserved bump from the good people at MR Records; We here at Sentinel Daily missed the album on it’s initial release – I’m blaming SD reviews editor Gavin Strickmann – so it seems only fair to dig in to this sumptuous smorgasbord of an album now in order to help bring it to the wider audience it so richly deserves…

Based in Adelaide, Kaiser and the Machines of Creation – built around the undoubted major talent that is singer/songwriter/guitarist Paul Kaiser – deliver a quirky, melody-laden mix of prog metal, pop rock and off-the-wall vaudeville that really has no close relatives in the world of metal down under at the moment. The title track, which opens proceedings, mixes post-Mindcrime Queensrÿche with British seventies rock a la Mott The Hoople via Kaiser’s superb vocalisation; following track Institute underlines the man’s powerhouse vocal style well enough to bring the mighty Graham Bonnet circa his original tenure as vocalist in pomp metallers Alcatrazz to mind; Meanwhile We’ll Climb The Mountain throws in a superb chorus that Def Leppard would have been proud to call their own during the Mutt Lange days, which, of course, shoots a line straight through to British seventies rock a la Mott The Hoople…

And that’s just the first three tracks. In The Mist adds an edgy new wave feel to proceedings – think the Motors or maybe City Boy – and, whilst this shopping list of classic rock names might point to a certain lack of originality, actually the very opposite is the case. All artists are the sum of their influences – except, maybe, the completely unlistenable ones – but few manage to marshall those influences into such a bewilderingly original melange of irresistible – and original – hard rock tuneage as do Kaiser and his band of merry men on this superb album. Even the spooky West End-stylings of It’s All A Lie, normally a sort of music this reviewer cannot abide – fits into the overall, sprawling picture so well it’s presence has to be acknowledged as part of the musical polymathery on show. This is seriously intelligent, well-thought out stuff. And we haven’t even gone anywhere near the consummate, Wilsonesque prog of Blown Away yet…

The result of all this is that, for all the earworm immediacy available to those who want it, this is an album that undoubtedly ultimately deserves and demands repeated listens and deep immersion; there’s an awful lot going on here, certainly more than can be touched on in a short review on the internet. To dissect every track would be tedious for you, the reader, as the breadth of the music demands more than just my take on the record – so go on – dig in and take delight in one of the most intriguing artists thrown up by the Australian hard rock scene in aeons…

Flowers and Lies re-emerges on April 22nd.