The Flower of Love – Pan’s Not Dead (Review)

The Flower Of Love Pan's Not Dead

It’s often considered the case that the end of something is true and undeniable; a case from which nothing can come forth. Yet, that cannot be any further from the truth so long as you have vision, passion, and the will to move forward albeit as something different, but still very much with the same spirit. When a musician reaches a certain level of success, it truly does feel like there has come an end to simply being able to craft something that speaks to your musical soul in the truest sense with the aspirations of the band at large taking the priority in many cases. But, there are always opportunities to find yourself back in the place where you first feel in love with your instrumental in your earliest days. When the pandemic hit for the world, The Flower of Love was born out of that very idea with the band’s first EP a true work of soul the very embodiment of what it means to be reborn out of what was previously thought gone and lost.

On the surface, it’s not hard to see a band like The Flower of Love as not much more than just two dudes jamming together in their basement with some strings, a drumset, and the purest desire to create music that comes from their very souls that they hope might maybe resonate with others. But, in reality, the duo behind the name are more than well-accomplished the world over with their experience in bands like Angel’s Arcana and Cripple Bastards (just to name two) have made them names to know, which makes a humble but deep effort like “Pan’s Not Dead” immensely intriguing to me. The five tracks brought forth in this debut for The Flower of Love are far from what many of us would think to come out of such a combination of musicians, but it’s with an unsurprising level of apt musicianship that they’ve managed to create a work somewhere in the realm between indie rock and punk for a sound that really feels as though the duo is pouring out their whole selves into the creation with a level of freedom that they haven’t felt in years to quickly make “Pan’s Not Dead” a piece that feels endlessly genuine. This is as far as we can get from an album meant to sell or to satisfy people all across the world who have come to expect something specific album after album. Rather, it’s something that feels poignant, personal, and the opposite of a product made for mass-consumption. This is what it means to have unrestricted creative freedom after so long, and it’s clear all the way to the very last note that The Flower of Love absolutely thrives with bliss in this work that surely they’re exuberant to have made.

It’s in every way that you can feel how free The Flower of Love is here in just five songs with it being downright infectious right from the very beginning as the cool basslines gel perfectly with the soulful vocals and rhythmic guitars that always hit their mark with the true wonder of the EP coming from the simple fact that this is but the debut from The Flower of Love. The groundwork that’s been put forth for this band to not only have a unique musical outlet in the future, but now we as listeners get to see a different side to these musicians that I don’t think we knew that we could definitely use. One can only hope that “Pan’s Not Dead” won’t stand long as the band’s sole work, but if it takes another ten years to hear from this band again if that’s the freedom they want to express with this newfound wonder then so be it. 

You can listen to “Pan’s Not Dead” on Bandcamp here.

Track Listing:

  1. Phantosmia (Pan’s not Dead)
  2. My Last Will
  3. Utopia
  4. Cine Castro
  5. Policia (Titãs Cover)