Half based in London, half in Toronto, the Flowers Of Hell are a trans-Atlantic rock orchestra made up of 16 or so experimental independent musicians. They mix orchestral and rock instrumentation while mainly creating wordless pieces that explore the intersecting points of classical and psychedelic blues based music (e.g., the Velvet Underground and Spacemen 3). Their name comes from the old blues ideal that the pleasure of the listener is born from the misery & toil of the musician.

Their second album, Come Hell Or High Water, has somehow turned out rather epic. It took a full year of work and involved recording 30 musicians in over 40 sessions that they pulled together in London, Toronto, Prague, Detroit, & Abilene, Texas. A lot of the people on it have played in acts vastly larger than them, including the Patti Smith Group, John Cale’s band, Spiritualized, Spacemen 3, British Sea Power, Bat For Lashes, Broken Social Scene, The Earlies, Guided By Voices, The Clientele, Do Make Say Think, The Hidden Cameras, The Ecstasy Of Saint Theresa, Tindersticks, The Early Years, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra amongst others. But they insist they are not to be mistaken for a supergroup. It isn’t Patti Smith working with Jason Pierce, Natasha Khan, Kevin Drew, Stuart Staples & Robert Pollard – rather it’s Patti’s bassist, Jason’s sax player, Natasha’s violist, Kevin’s violinist, Stuart’s saw player, and Robert’s drummer working with the other guests and Flowers.