King Crimson is not a single band, but rather the name given to a series of bands with one common member (uber-guitarist Robert Fripp, who has only sometimes been the primary creative force of the group). Love them or hate them (and believe me, I do my fair share of both), few bands can (or should) command more of my respect. Of all the classic "progressive rock" bands, King Crimson is just about the only one to have understood the term in the literal sense of the word, as opposed to a genre distinction (created by Crimson themselves, of course) whose potential was 95% used up by 1975. The result is that the band has created some of the most interesting music of the rock era, and has consistently challenged the listener to embrace new ideas and genres.
That said, appreciating King Crimson took a long time for me. The main thing is that, within the prog genre, my tastes naturally gravitate more towards Yes, Genesis or even ELP than KC. The conception my brain has of prog is the kind of bombastic, "symphonic" prog that makes up stuff like Close to the Edge and the like (including KC's first two albums). Crimson's form of prog, however, tended to incorporate heavy elements of modern classical (sometimes), avantgarde jazz (sometimes), and later heavy elements of New Wave. For a "classic" prog lover, who wants their favorite bands to churn out endless clones of early 70's works, this can be a nightmare. For the more adventurous amongst us, though, this can lead to some incredibly interesting experiences, and it's worth it to willingly allow one's tastes to expand in order to enjoy the best stuff here.
Of course, the downside with any great experimental band is that, well, experiments sometimes fail. While the band is very often able to perfectly balance accessibility and complexity to stunning effect, the band also often veers too far into the experimental end to be enjoyable or even listenable. It's not that I have anything against the band's endless pioneering (I fully understand that to get to heaven, sometimes you have to go through hell), but that doesn't mean I have to pretend to enjoy all of it. In particular, I'm referring to many of the band's live improvs, which often sparked great ideas for later tracks but that don't often have much value on their own (unless you get off on technical proficiency as an asset in and of itself).
It should also be noted that the band, in its last couple of incarnations, has seemingly regarded studio recordings as far less important than live performance. 80's (and beyond) King Crimson too often sounds like complexity and studio trickery for its own sake, a very artificial cut-and-paste process of taking the least accessible chord sequences imaginable and jamming over them. Sometimes this can be really enjoyable, sometimes not, but maximum enjoyment of modern KC can only take place in a live format. Of course, I make that statement with the caveat that I'm referring to the band's performances of proper studio work, not purposefully unlistenable stuff a la THRaKaTTaK...
As far as the lineup goes, that's very "era-specific," and it would be useless to name every lineup here. I should, however, say a few words about Robert Fripp, the only constant. Fripp is an easy target for mockery, and I know that I once let myself majorly despise him. Frankly though, I'm not sure it's worth it. Yes, from many perspectives, he is a HUGE abberation of rock culture - he sits while playing his instrument, he wears a sportscoat, he gets furious at his fans when they bootleg or take pictures, he speaks like a super stuffy academian, he's arrogant as hell (well, that's not much of an aberration), he's reluctant to delve into back catalogue, etc etc. As my brother would say, though, he's nothing more than the latest in a long, long line of British eccentrics - he may be unusual for rock music, but he's far less uncommon as a whole than you'd imagine. And besides, I get the feeling more and more that he just wants to push the buttons of the people he knows will get upset with him for what he does, and that he has his detractors right under his thumb, where he wants them.
Besides, let's not dwell on the negatives with Fripp. Whatever you may think of the man, no reasonable person can deny his complete mastery of all things related to the guitar. Robert Fripp, for me, is the heir to Jimi Hendrix's title of "best complete guitarist on earth." Fripp has amply demonstrated that as far as the combination of soloing, riffing and feedback creation goes, few if any people can beat him in terms of the "total package." The last is particularly noteworthy with Fripp - he is a MAJOR pioneer in making the guitar take on sounds that are completely non-standard for the instrument, particularly with his soundscapes that are kind of like synthesizers but not. Add this to his favored brand of atonal feedback, and you have a sound that, at the very least, is usually able to perk up my ears.
Overall, then, I'm able to give the band a rating of 4 out of 5, which isn't bad considering I once feared the band like mad. I should note, though, that the decision is only made into a slam dunk because of the brilliance of Absent Lovers - otherwise, while I probably could convince myself to give something (read: Red) a 14, I would be hardpressed. Regardless, when all is said and done, I do put the band on the same level as Yes and Genesis, just in a different way. They bore me more frequently than do those bands, but I can't ignore that the band has way way way too many classics in its wake. I can't and I won't. Onto yonder reviews.
What do you think of King Crimson?
Daniel and Corine Bosch (dcbosch@optusnet.com.au) (10/23/02)
Glad to see you start on the Herculean task that is summarising the
career of the mighty Crim. I LOVE this band, they are different from any
other "prog" band for oh so many reasons. For one, they rock harder than
any prog band you'd care to name, especially during the
Cross/Fripp/Wetton/Bruford period. Secondly, as you mention, they are a
band that don't look backwards at their own history, but progress, even
if that means a radically different path (with the exception of The
ConstruKction Of Light, which was often strangely derivative). Thirdly,
they have had a strong emphasis on improvisation, whereas most prog bands
prefer pieces that, though improvisation may sometimes play a part in the
initial writing, are usually very strictly structured. Improv is critical
to the best, and indeed the worst, monents in the Crim catalogue. Their
edginess, their unpredictability is what makes them frightening to some
but it is also what makes their best moments so good and their catalogue
so rewarding to those who dare to delve.
I would like to offer my opinion on THE most common belief about KC -
that Crimson = Fripp. Yes Robert is the only constant in the various
lineups. However, except for a brief period, say 1970-early 1972, Crimson
has ALWAYS been a collaborative thing. That is not to say that Robert
Fripp isn't important, indeed he is pivotal to the group(s). But he works
best in collaboration with other musicians, and that is, for the most
part, what he does in KC. He (usually) chooses his musical company well,
too. John, you alluded to what I have mentioned i this paragraph at the
top of your page (kudos to you for doing so too!) but I felt this was a
vital point worth mentioning in detail. I thank you for your indulgence
and look forward to the individual reviews.
Christine Rhodes-Fiocchi (rhodesfiocchi@earthlink.net) (11/13/02)
I first heard King Crimson at the age of fifteen.I fell in love with
their music immediately.The very first record that I heard was IN THE
WAKE OF POSEIDON.Then ISLANDS,COURT,and LIZARD-in that order.The early
period was very magical for me.I remember standing in my neighbor's
cornfield and hearing their music in my head.At night I would listen to
all four records while a cool breeze blew through my window.Another fun
thing to do was putting the speakers in the window and while their music
played I would glance at the stars.This was great to do either on the
front steps of the house or on the roof.Their music was my high and I
needed no drugs.However I was being criticized left and right by fans of
southern rock. In south jersey there is no culture.The ART POLICE keep an
eye out for people who listen to underground music.But,enough of that.The
next record that I bought was McDONALD AND GILES.I now own the jap import
on disc.I loved it! There are parts of that record that remind me of the
middle sections of SCHIZOID MAN and PICTURES OF A CITY.Unfortunately,
there are other parts of the record that sound like corny english pop
rock.The year was 1973 I believe and Crimson reformed.Larks Tongues in
Aspic was a really bizzare sounding record for a kid to hear.I was under
the impression at the time that the band may have been associated with
witchcraft.Then I heard STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK and was convinced that
there had to be a connection.KING CRIMSON are my favorite gothic band.I
have heard their music most of my lifetime but,they are timeless and
because of that I can still get into the right mood to enjoy a few hours
of their fascinating compositions.They were an obsession of mine.I
bought offshoot projects all the time. Such as:GORDON HASKELL'S IT IS AND
IT ISN'T.Some of the folk songs on this record are reminiscent of early
Crimson ballads .There is frequent use of the mellotron and his voice is
a little like Nick Drake.I also had a record titled SEPTOBER ENERGY BY
CENTIPEDE.As you probably know this was a project KEITH TIPPET put
together.It included the horn players that appeared on LIZARD and ISLANDS
and of course much later -RED.Fripp was involved with the production I
believe.It was the kind of avant garde style that could raise the dead.A
real rigor mortis kinda music.Especially the piece where every one with
vocal capability proceeds in making hellish sounds as if they are being
thrown into a hot bubbling cauldron. Very undead.When Mel Collins,Boz
Burrell,and Ian Wallce left Crimson to join up with Alexis Corner I ran
out and bought the record. It's not a bad record if you like blues. Pete
Sinfield's Still I was dissapointed in but the title track is very good.
Greg Lake sings on this one! Very beautiful. There was a really nice
record by a band called FIELDS. A self titled album with melodic
arrangements and wonderful keyboard playing from GRAHAM FIELDS.ANDREW
MCULLOCH one of the great drummers with King Crimson plays so beautiful
on this record.I love this record! Do you know where I can obtain a copy
on disc?GRAHAM FIELDS of course worked with RARE BIRD.ANDREW MCULLOCH
went on to GREENSLADE. JACKSON HEIGHTS was a band that MICHAEL GILES
recorded with and I really don't remember their sound.They might have
sounded like BARCLEY JAMES HARVEST I don't know.MICHAEL GILES is really
great on an ANTHONY PHILLIPS piece titled NIGHMARE.It is from an album
titled SIDES.Also,don't forget WISE AFTER THE EVENT,MICHAEL GILES does a
great job on that one.He also worked with PENQUIN CAFE ORCHESTRA,maybe a
couple of tracks.GILES,GILES,AND FRIPP is sort of poppy but,some of the
instrumentals are unbelievable.I am still looking for the cd:THE YOUNG
PERSON'S GUIDE TO KING CRIMSON the compilation of Crimson music
circa:1969-1974.I passed it up twice and I can't stand myself for that.I
remember seeing it in 1987.I believe it is a Japanese import. Do you know
where I can find it? I beleive there was an album that ROBERT FRIPP
recorded with a witch in England back in 1971 during a KING CRIMSON
personal transition.I read about this in the booklet that came with the
Young Person's Guide To KING CRIMSON album.I would like to find this
record.I never liked the later KING CRIMSON. The discipline line up. I
purchased new releases of early concerts and was very pleased with the
following" THE GREAT DECEIVER box set is really worth the price! EPITAPH
was okay.I'm impressed how they cleaned it up.I have to say that the best
thing about this record is the Fillmore West show.It's very strange
thinking about King Crimson performing in front of hippes in 1969.KING
CRIMSON U.S.A. is nothing to kill for believe me. I give it a b- minus.
As for EARTHBOUND, someone must really be hard up for money to release
this horrible recording.I think it sounds like a toliet flushing over and
over again and that's it!BOZ always had a great voice for singing soft
stuff. I can't believe how good his voice sounds on ISLANDS .It had a
similar sound to the vocalist in GENTLE GIANT. The kind of vocal
atmosphere that they created in ballads. On EARTHBOUND he sounds like he
is throwing up.I like being honest about my favorite band. They were
innovators in a style of music that almost seems forgotten today. more at
11:00, Johnny
reflections@ixpres.com (1/17/05)
The best.
As a total package, no equals...even today, athough I think Fripp may be
getting old.
I have found that the direction of his work is not working for me, with
the exception of soundscapes, which, If I lived long enough to see it,
might evolve its own 'order from it's chaos'.
Best song: One In A Million, but that's only because I can't really count the various Saga Of Rodney Toady bits as "songs"
The greatest thing about this album is that, whereas Crimson albums wouldn't have anything resembling a "national identity," this album is so thoroughly British in so many places that I can't help but grin. First, I must point out that, thanks to this album, I can never ever hold any malice towards Robert Fripp again, if only because nobody who can deliver such a hilarious spoken piece as The Saga of Rodney Toady deserves anybody's hatred. This is BRILLIANT straight-faced British humor, and Fripp's delivery is simply perfect as perfect can be - I can't imagine anybody else saying "Rodney's mother was fat and ugly, and Rodney's father was even .... fat-and-uglier" or anything along those lines and doing it better than good ole Robert does here. God Bless Robert Fripp.
The rest of the album, with the exception of a LAME repeated spoken partner to Rodney Toady, entitled Just George, is basically a ton of Kinks-style Brit Pop crossed with some jazz ideas and the occasional bit of Moody-Bluesian balladry. Some bits of Crimsonian elements creep in here and there (some of the vocal harmonies in North Meadow, the brass riff in Elephant Song, the dissonant guitar lines of The Crukster, the bits of classical influence in Suite No. 1), but for the most part this is just really solid, slightly tweaked pop with elements of music hall. For a Crimson fan, I guess that wouldn't necessarily be the best news, but for somebody like me, who likes the concurrent Kinks albums (not to mention that I consider Between the Buttons one of the best pop albums ever), it's cause to pump my arms up a couple of inches and utter a quiet "woo hoo." Some songs are better than others, to be sure, but I'm quite sure that I won't be able to get the melodies to One in a Million, How Do They Know?, North Meadow and Thursday Morning out of my head for quite a while.
So yeah, even though it's kinda hard to give this an extensive review (not necessarily because of the album itself - I'm in kind of a daze as I write this, you see), this is one of the most worthwhile historical curiousities I've come across in a long time. There's tons of interesting, tweaked and hilarious bits to dig out while listening throughout, and if it weren't for all these ridiculous Just George bits, this would have a chance to take quite a significant place in my collection. As is, it's still freakin' amusing.
Best song: 21st Century Schizoid Man or Epitaph
Of course, one should note that its impact and importance wasn't completely for the better. On the one hand, its overnight success inspired many bands that might not have otherwise done so to take up the prog genre, and that wasn't (at least in the short term) necessarily a good thing. It's no concidence for me that the outpouring of terrific prog albums began not one year later, but two years later - 1970 is filled to the brim with clumsy transitional albums by talented bands that wanted to be prog but hadn't quite figured out the genre's finer points. There were some exceptions (Gentle Giant, though it's VERY much like this album, or H to He by Van Der Graff Generator, though even they put out their own mediocre prog album that year in The Least We Can Do is Wave to Each Other, or ELP), but they were just that, exceptions.
There's also the fact that, ultimately, this album, in my humble opinion, helped shorten the shelf-life of "quality" prog. Most genres have a lengthy "embryonic" stage, where the rules and boundaries and positive qualities of the genre are established. Then there's a "peak" period, where a slew of solid albums are released within the genre, and afterwards there's a decline, where high quality output gets harder and harder to find. In the Court of the Crimson King had the interesting effect of completely eliminating the "embryonic" stage in one fell swoop. Ultimately, 95% of all the further developments of the genre were embellishments of the ideas presented here, and while that allowed for greatness for a good while, the possibilities were capped simply by this fact.
Alright, enough of the peripheral impact of this album, let's talk about the music. The most important member of the band at this point, despite what "Fripp runs everything" proponents might believe, was mellotronist/saxaphonist/flautist Ian McDonald, who also played the biggest role in the songwriting. The melodies are heavily based in a classical, operatic tradition (except for the opener, of course), with some connections to regular pop but much more bombastic. Still, the melodies are GOOD, so even somebody who might hate the idea of pretense in music might still get a kick out of the quality tunes found here. The arrangements tend to follow suit - the mellotrons create an overwhelming symphonic effect at times, while the drumming (courtesy of Michael Giles) is deep, echoey and, yup, bombastic. Fripp is mostly downplayed (except, again, on the first track), yet makes his presence felt with some brilliantly beautiful electric and acoustic lines.
The vocals and lyrics also fit firmly into the bombast motif. Pete Sinfield contributes the lyrics (though nothing else), and while they're as pretentious as all get-out, they're not imageless by any means. It actually helps to listen to the lyrics the way you'd listen to the lyrics of an opera - listen to the sounds of the words, occasionally pick up on a moving or repeated line here and there, and just let them blend into the instrumentation. Granted, Sinfield turned out to be a HORRID influence, provoking whomever to jot down the most pretentious yet meaningless stuff imaginable ("All we are is dust in the wind!"), and even he himself wasn't so great all the time, but on this album, he's more or less ok. And besides, it helps that he has Greg Lake to sing his lines - of all the voices in rock, I can't think of anybody more suited to bombastic, near operatic-singing, and he allows all the lines, good and bad, to come alive.
Now, at this point, I should start talking about the actual songs. Problem is, this album has been reviewed a 100 zillion times by sites like mine, and I'm not sure there's ANYTHING left to say about them that hasn't been said. So here's the general breakdown - if you want more details, just piece them together from the other review sites on the net.
21st Century Schizoid Man: Booming guitar-based rhythm track, distorted screaming vocals, beautifully apocalyptic lyrics, incredible mid-song sax-guitar jam, WILD Hendrix-style guitar soloing.
I Talk to the Wind: Lovely melody, lots of flutes, ultra-pretentious lyrics, nice breather between epics.
Epitaph: Brilliant melody, layers of well-constructed bombast, lots of mellotron and woodwinds, terrific lyrics, AWESOME vocals, beautiful guitar solo, lengthy but not overlong fadeout.
Moonchild: Major mis-hit of the album, first two minutes are a decent ballad, next ten are quiet and incoherent rambling jamming on vibes and bits of percussion. Blargh.
In the Court of the Crimson King: Ultra-bombastic, brilliant melody, TERRIFIC harmonies following the chorus, lots of mellotron, lots of variation on the main theme.
There you have it. Again, if you go to this album looking for the pinnacle of prog, you'll be disappointed, but if you come here looking for where it all began AND why anybody cared in the first place, you won't be let down.
Daniel and Corine Bosch (dcbosch@optusnet.com.au) (10/29/02)
Wow! What a start. As you alluded in your review, unlike bands like Yes,
Genesis and the like, the first King Crimson album was fully prog, and
surprisingly cohesive, mature (the band had not even been together a year
when they recorded this, more like about 7 months), fully realised.
As for the songs, "21st Century Schizoid Man" is a mind-blowing opening,
showing everything the band had - brilliant musicianship, great singing,
interesting lyrics - what more could you want? "I Talk To The Wind" is a
great ballad, showing the quiet side of KC. The gentle flutes starting
this song so soon after the cacophonous ending to "Schizoid Man" just
melted my brain the first time I heard it. "Epitaph is a powerful song
with another great lyric, and possibly the best vocal Greg Lake ever
recorded. "Moonchild" demonstrated one of Crim's great passions -
improvisation. the extended improv after the short "song" section is love
it or loathe it stuff. When in the right frame of mind, I do enjoy the
piece. Finally the title track, and it's another tour de force, though,
for mine, not quite as fine as "Epitaph" I'd have to give it 9.5 out of
10.
On a side note, I'm not sure one could call The Nice's The Thoughts Of
Emerlist Davjack the first prog album. For me, there is only one really
prog track - "Rondo". The rest of the album is more geared toward
psychedelic pop with the occasional spurt of bombast from Keith Emerson.
If I were going to award this one, I'd say right band, wrong album and
give the award for first prog album to their second album, Ars Longa Vita
Brevis which featured both a classical piece reinterpreted ("Karalia
Suite") and a side-long epic (the title track, complete with "movements",
and another classical quote to boot with the "Brandenburger" section).
Just my two cents worth!
bsitting@mail.math.ucsb.edu (11/13/02)
You pretty much hit this album right on the nail (including 'summaries' of each
of the songs, instead of reviewing the songs as usual...)! Personally,
either "Epitaph" or "21st Century Schizoid Man" is my favorite song from this
album. As it's mentioned, this album is surprisingly well-conceived for a debut
album (minus half of "Moonchild" of course).
It is quite astute of you to bring up the influences this album had on prog,
especially the "shorter shelf life" comment. I didn't quite think of it quite
that way, yet there seems to be so much truth to that. Even mid-70's Crimson
owes to this record! (The 80's is another beast all together...) I must say
that the nonsensical lyrics seem to have gained notoriety in the Psychedelic
era (from which it seems the experimental aspects of this era led to prog rock)
at least. A prime suspect of this comes from Cream ("Those Were the
Days", "Swlbar" (sic)). But, admittedly, Sinfeld wrote some really BAD lyrics
on the next album.
Oh, and I agree with the 9(13).
Raghavan RANGANATHAN (S3046624@student.rmit.edu.au) (8/10/03)
This is a good album but I am not sure if I would place it on such a high level
as you do. The songwriting seems to be a bit underdeveloped. The title track and
Schizoid man each feature just a single verse sung 4 times over (albeit
with different lyrics). No chorus, no middle eights, nothing and it frankly
gets boring when the same melody is repeated over and over again without any
variations. Oh well, I still like the album anyway.
Akis Katsman (watta502@yahoo.gr) (9/30/03)
I think it's a brilliant album, especially in its time, except the
clinky-tinky part on 'Moonchild' which has no reason to exist. The other
tracks rule though. '21st Century Schizoid Man' is, without a doubt, the
best song of 1969, hands down. It was like nothing else at that time.
Brilliant. Lake does his best on 'Epitaph' and the title track, two great
epics. 'I Talk To The Wind' is a little less interesting, but pretty as a
teddy bear. I dig the flute too. Get this album, regardless of how much
money you have. An absolute classic. 9.5/10 (half a point off due to the
pointless 'Moonchild').
Trfesok@aol.com (10/27/06)
I bought this after I got into ELP. And the reaction was "Wow!". Of
course, Lake's voice is really the only link. The power of the album
is undeniable. I remember once Justin Hayward taking a dig at Crimson
for copping their sound. While this is true to a certain extent, Crim
took the sound into a far darker direction. (Only the Moodies track
"What Am I Doing Here?" approaches the bleakness of "Epitaph" or the
nightmare of the title track.) Of course, "..Schizoid Man.." sounds
nothing like the Moodies, and the group's technical proficiency was
far superior. Another thing that made them stand out was that they
were really the first art rock band to truly incorporate jazz into
their music. (The Nice tried, with covering Dave Brubeck's "Blue
Rondo a la Turk", but all they did was rearrange it into a rock
mode). This, of course turned out both great (the "Mirrors" freak out
middle section of "..Schizoid Man..") and really bad (the endless
coda to "Moonchild". They called this section "The Dream" and "The
Illusion", but it should been called "The Nap" and "The Snooze").
With "Moonchild", they did bite off more than they could chew so that
they could fill up space on the album, but becuase they tackle jazz
as well as folk and classical influences, I also agree that this is
the first truly prog album. A classic.
Sergei (swamprock@mail.ru) (03/17/07)
Argh...! Similar, you as well as majority critics who describe this
album suppose the main mistake. Under the review it is visible that
you too abuse with words like "bombastic", instead of main -
recognition of the valid greatness of songs and album as a whole. So,
we have the really great rock-album which has rendered ENORMOUS
influence on development progressive-rock (would be very strange if
you did not recognize it!). I advise you to look on " In The Court "
from other, less prejudiced point of view. Really you can not forgive
to group avantgardish improvisation in Moonchild? It not seems that
other tracks (like 21st Schizoid, Epitaph, In The Court) are so
majestic what is possible to not accept to heart even long 10-minute
"caprice" Moonchild? Eventually, silly to put " In The Court Of The
Crimson King " lower than fucking Close To The Edge (which two third
- ABSOLUTE bullshit) by Yes. Believe, it is ridiculous!
I not die-hard fan of Crimson and I heard of enough various music to
speak about " In The Court... " as about one of greatest products of
rock. Ok, it deserves (at least!) 10 (14), but I would put 10 (15).
PS: Please, pay attention to other album KC - Lizard. Your estimation
and in this case is too prejudiced, I am sure that you in earnest did
not want to understand Lizard. It is a remarkable album. Too.
Best song: Mars (both of them)
One thing that keeps getting stressed in the liner notes is that, as good as it might have been, Court didn't totally capture the intensity of the band's stage performances, and these performances definitely show a lot of sonic and rhythmic power (the tradeoff, though, is that the stage didn't have as much precision from the mellotron). Aside from multiple renditions of the big three epics of Court (no Talk to the Wind or Moonchild here), there are two renditions each of A Man, A City (later Pictures of a City) and Mars (later The Devil's Triangle), and they're a freaking blast. A Man, A City might go slightly overboard with the jazzy mid-section, but I enjoy it just fine nonetheless, and the 'main' sections of the song rule as much as they would in the studio version. My definite favorites of this set, though, are the two renditions of Mars, which do an incredible job of pounding that steady menacing rhythm into my head while the mellotron does its atmospheric thing. So help me, I'm a sucker for a good crescendo, and while the band would have great success in later years with Talking Drum and Dangerous Curves, I'm not totally sure it ever surpassed the sheer grandeur of its live Mars performances for head-pounding build-up.
There are also a number of tracks that didn't make it to any studio album, and they're of, um, mixed quality. Drop In would later have some of its music reworked into The Letters, and it's okayish, though it's easy to see why it was relegated to rarity status. Get Thy Bearings (which I first heard on Ladies of the Road) isn't very impressive, Mantra has completely passed me by every time, Travel Weary Capricorn sounds like a bad outtake from In Search of the Lost Chord (not in lyrics, but definitely in music), and Travel Bleary Capricorn shows that King Crimson had a long ways to go before it could produce effective improvised jazz rock (I'm not a huge fan of the improvs from the '73-'74 incarnation, but on the whole they're way above what's here).
Overall, then, this isn't a must-have for any King Crimson fan, but as I said, a big fan of the first era would do well to hear this album at some point. Giles is a little less precise than in the studio, as is McDonald, but Lake is mostly spectacular on vocals, Fripp sounds fine, and overall the band gels into something incredibly special. Hearing this album, if nothing else, makes it even more clear why King Crimson became such a huge sensation in such a brief period, and from the historical document angle, that makes this worth seeking out. Don't get it before Court or Poseidon, though.
Daniel Bosch (bicycle_legs@optusnet.com.au) (09/29/07)
I love this release. I am definitely NOT one of those who think this
is the only KC (I think every incarnation has produced some special
music, except maybe for the rotating door 1970-72 period). However,
This release does make me wish that this incarnation had done one or
two more albums. BTW, if you don't have it, I thoroughly recommend
getting the McDonald & Giles album, it's great, IMHO essential for
anyone interested in this period of Crim.
Best song: Pictures Of A City
So Fripp took over the songwriting duties, almost by default. Unfortunately, he had another major problem to face - I get the strong feeling that Fripp feared that, along with the loss of the main songwriter, a change in direction could prove fatal for both the band's ability to keep fans and to maintain critical respect. As a result, he panicked more than a bit - the first side of this album, by and large, is a direct remake of the first side of Court, and that fact alone seemingly drives some fans away to this day. As an aside, I also get the feeling that Fripp's near maniacal refusal to live in the past that has characterized most King Crimson through the 70's, 80's and 90's is a direct factor of adamently refusing to make a "copying mistake" that even remotely resembles what happened between this and Court. But I digress.
You see, remake or no, this is still a high quality effort. Comparisons with the debut are only natural, and in the end this album is worse in some ways than Court, but better in others. The drawbacks, other than the remake factor, are basically the following: first, strewn throughout the album are three Peace songs, with mostly a capella Lake vocals singing some really stupid and really pretentious lyrics. Second, Sinfield's lyrics have taken a major dip in quality from Court (with the exception of one track) - they're as bombastic as ever, but now there are no cleverly ear-catching lines that make them stand out in any good way. Lake does his best to make them work, and he sometimes succeeds, but overall it's hard not to fidget at times.
On the good side: No Moonchild! The album also boasts better production than its predecessor - the mellotrons are grander and more awe-inspiring than ever, and everything else just seems to have more punch and vigor. The second side also has a couple of great tracks the likes of which were DEFINITELY not found on Court. First, there's Cat Food (which I guess is a leftover from the first album sessions - McDonald has a writing credit), a dissonant-piano-driven proto-New-Wave piece that was picked as the advance single for some reason or another. The lyrics are actually funny for once, the melody is catchy in its own way, and Lake's screams do a great job of making it work. Following that is something completely different - the three-part The Devil's Triangle, an adapation of Gustav Holst's Mars The Bringer of War, which had been part of their stage set for quite some time (McDonald has a writing credit here, in the first part). True to the form of the original, the first couple of minutes are a very slow, very intense crescendo with some bits of mellotron here and there, but later it turns into a creepy noisefest with all sorts of eerie keyboard parts moving up and down and side to side, and even a brief quote from the last album's title track. It be neat, yes it be.
Ah, but there's still the issue of the first side, the Court-ripoff. Well, let's be frank - ripoff or no, it's GOOD. The songs may be very stylistically similar to their corresponding tracks on Court, but they're hardly direct ripoffs, and they're definitely performed well. Pictures of a City is a great, great sequel to Schizoid Man (oddly enough, though, it was performed in the same shows as Schizoid Man as early as 1969) - it features the same kind of structure as that track, but there are plenty of differences. The general feel is much jazzier, as the main riff of the track has enough to amply satisfy both rock and jazz lovers fully. It has the same "Lake screams over a booming rhythm track" motif in the verses, yes, but never mind that - the jam in the middle of the track is both better produced and more complex (with another bunch of great Fripp solos) than the Schizoid jam, and overall I have trouble seeing how somebody who loved Schizoid could hate this (well, except for the fact that the lyrics on this one can't hold a candle to those of Schizoid).
Next up is the I Talk to the Wind match, the lovely poppy Cadence and Cascade. For this one, the band actually brought in one Gordon Haskell to sing the vocals, and first time I heard it, I didn't even know it wasn't necessarily Lake himself. I'd say the melody is even prettier than the one to Wind, and the piano/acoustic arrangement could easily be appreciated by somebody who hated Wind on general principle. Of course, once again, the lyrics blow chunks, but that's been covered.
Then there's the title track, the Epitaph clone. The lyrics are a good deal worse, yet Lake delivers another amazing vocal performance, one that allows me to focus on the sound of his voice and ignore the lyrics. As for the melody, it's much the same as before, but there are a couple of moments of catharsis in the chord sequences that even Epitaph struggled to match. Add in that the mellotrons are (as mentioned earlier) much louder, and that the lengthy fadeout gives a genuine epic symphonic feel not really found elsewhere in the world of rock music, and you have a track that, while not exceeding Epitaph, at least makes a good run at matching it.
And that's your followup. It has its problems, but it's definitely not a huge stepdown from Court (it's pretty close to a 13, if you ask me), and Fripp should be given plenty of credit for that. And if you have more doubts about the quality of the album, know this - my brother, whose favorite band is KC, now feels that Court is the worst Crimson album barring Lizard, yet he digs this album. Go figure.
Daniel and Corine Bosch (dcbosch@optusnet.com.au) (10/29/02)
Yes, OK, this album has similarities to the first one. There are good
reasons for this. Firstly, as you point out, Robert Fripp didn't want to
stray too far due to the personnel changes. Secondly, however, despite
the writing credits alot of this album was devised by the original
lineup. If you don't already have it, I strongly recommend the two CD box
Epitaph which documents the original lineup live. "Pictures Of A City",
for example, was in the original lineup's repetoire, known as "A Man, A
City". Similarly "The Devil's Triangle", as you pointed out, is an
adaptation of "Mars" by Holst, also an early live staple. The "Peace"
tracks are silly (although the instrumental version Fripp plays on
acoustic is gorgeous) but too short to upset me. On side one the only
failure for me is the title track, a flat rewrite of "Epitaph" with much
weaker lyrics, a much less impressive vocal from Greg and a tune that is
just too similar for its own good. The rest is great though and side two
is also impressive. "Cat Food" is my personal favourite, a witty lyric
sung with relish and some nutty piano from Keith Tippett. After the debut
- wich was a truly collaborative effort, this album was, I think, Robert
Fripp trying to find his feet as "bandleader" or whatever. I give it 8.5
out of 10.
bsitting@mail.math.ucsb.edu (11/13/02)
Such pretentious album titles! Personally, the rip-offs do annoy me a little
bit (especially on the title song). But, it's hard to deny they are still
worthy rip-offs, as Fripp put enough twists to still make it sound fresh.
Still, I prefer the originals (though there's more guitar and jazz, making
things interesting). Also, Gentle Giant's "Alucard" improves on "Pictures of a
City".
Back to the album itself. In all truth, except for the two acapella "Peace"
snippets, the songs are really good. And things get even better (and weirder)
as we pass to the "original" songs. "The Devil's Triangle" could have made a
good soundtrack to a march (what a great build-up). Of course, you noted the
reference to the last album (so much for an original comment!). In short, this
gets an 8(12) from me (considering I thought it way more pale until recently).
Trfesok@aol.com (05/03/07)
I like it a lot, too, even if half of it's a retread. It does sound a
lot clearer than the first album. Sinfield's lyrics had really
degenerated into blather, especially on the title track, where he
seemingly threw together disconnected phrases for the heck of it. But
it sounds cool, anyway. I do think, on the other hand, that the
lyrics to "Cadence and Cascade" (a couple of groupies who evidently
become disappointed when they meet their hero in the flesh) are quite
touching and delivered nicely by Haskell. I really like Giles' work
here, as well as on "Pictures.." and "The Devil's Triangle." Unlike
you, I do think that he gave Bruford a run for the money, at least at
this point. The album may not break enough new ground for hardcore
Crim-heads, but I wouldn't have minded if the continues along these
lines, based on the quality of this one.
Best song: Prince Rupert Awakes
While it's good that Robert Fripp was so intent on avoiding a second 'clone' of Court, this is a clear example of my belief that change is only for the better if, well, it's for the better. Except for Fripp and Sinfield, all remnants of the Court lineup have been swept away by this time, and it's obvious that Robert wanted to make a clean break from the stylistics of the first two albums and establish his own identity. There are some people who played on Wake - Gordon Haskell is now the bassist and lead vocalist, Mel Collins is the fulltime woodwinds player, as well as a couple of others - but the sound couldn't possibly be more different from that on those albums.
The problem, though, isn't that the album is different. The problem is that the album sucks. Fripp may have had to assume the songwriting duties on Wake, but much of that merely constituted of slight tinkering with ideas from the first album (with a bit of structured avantgarde here and there). On Lizard, however, Fripp had to assume control of both the songwriting and the artistic direction, and it seems to me that shouldering both proved too much for him. With only a very small number of exceptions, Fripp's goal seemed not to lean towards any kind of memorability or even sense, but rather trying to be as complex and grandiose and epic and avantgarde as he could without considering whether or not these qualities served any purpose. For a hardcore prog fan, Lizard might seem fine for just those reasons; however, as much as I love my Close to the Edge and Foxtrot and Octopus, I require that complexity and its cousins in some way entertain me. Simply put, Lizard doesn't.
Fripp's songwriting, however, does not get full blame for how much I dislike this album. Gordon Haskell was an alright vocalist on Cadence and Cascade, but this album is a whole other story. Basically, he's an incredibly mediocre tenor that sounds like he has a frog in his throat at all times. It's not just that he's worse than Lake - it's that he's worse than almost EVERY SINGLE VOCALIST I'VE EVER HEARD. However, in the area of the vocals, Haskell isn't even the biggest problem - rather, that honor goes to what he's singing. On this album, Sinfield simply went berzerk with his lyrics, penning such brilliancies as "Stake a lizard by the throat" (and that's a lyric from the best part of the album!). In short, awful vocals + awful lyrics + incredibly mediocre vocal melodies = bad music made worse.
So what about the songs? I can find some good things here and there, but wow I have to reach. The opening Cirkus is more or less tolerable - everything associated with the vocals is dumb (including the instrumentation under the vocal parts), but the mellotron-guitar breaks between verses are rather interesting, and some of the "soaring" mellotron parts provide a slight return to the well-done epic vibe of the first two albums. I also more or less enjoy the first section of side-two's sidelong title track, as it's basically just a nice pop song with guest vocals from Yes' Jon Anderson (hey, did you know there was a rumor of Robert Fripp joining Yes as Peter Banks' replacement? Imagine how THAT would have turned out...). The lyrics are of course utterly abominable, but I'm able to lose myself in the neat pop chorus and even in the more atmospheric parts of the verse melody. So yeah, there's some good stuff on the album after all.
However, that's more or less it as far as really good music goes. The rest of the first side is practically worthless - Lady of the Dancing Water is the best of these, and that's only because it does nothing instead of actively offend. And offend the others do. Indoor Games is a 4th-rate Pictures of a City, with a laaaaazy saxaphone riff that hasn't 1/100 of the intensity of that masterpiece, nor a single decent hook throughout. Bear in mind, that's before the last chunk of the song, when we're greeted with the DUMBEST SOUNDING SYNTH EVER, and a fadeout with Gordon laughing "menacingly" for no apparent reason. This in turn leads to Happy Family, one of the most abominable songs I've heard in some time. The instrumental parts are just about the very definition of mindless, directionless jamming, with seemingly random piano and synth and guitar noise and whatever for some of the worst four minutes of my life. This is compounded by the fact that Fripp found the one way to make Haskell's voice more unbearable - he encoded it in distortion, and suddenly Haskell's obnoxious human voice became an obnoxious android voice.
Now the second side (after Prince Rupert Awakes) is a bit strange for me. I like PARTS of it (at least, after many many listens), but as a whole, I consider the track a failure. Bolero - The Peacock's Tale is an attempt to fuse jazz ideas with modern classical ripoffs, and while it mostly bores me, it does have a reeeeally pretty mellotron line that pops up a couple of times. During the next part, the ten-minute The Battle of Glass Tears (with three parts of its own), the music just kinda goes and goes, though there is a reasonably interesting theme that parts of it seem to be based on. I also kinda like Prince Rupert's Lament, the only time of the album where Fripp's guitar is prominent (not in shred mode at all, but the tone and note choices are quintessential Fripp), and the ending Big Top is amusing in a kitcsh sort of way. Again, though, a couple of decent moments in a track this long just doesn't cut it for me.
In short, this album is one of the great failures of progressive rock. There can be little question as to why Fripp looks back on this album and basically asks "WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING." This is the sort of album that gives a bad name to prog rock, one filled with pretense and poorly executed ambition, hoping to get by on bombast with no substance. I originally wanted to give it a 2, but even after finding a little more good material within, I cannot in good conscience increase it by much.
Daniel and Corine Bosch (dcbosch@optusnet.com.au) (11/06/02)
Definitely a step down from the first two albums, but I do still like
this on, if in the right mood. "Cirkus" is probably my favourite song, I
love the menacing mellotron/guitar riff after each verse. Haskell is
definitely the worst vocalist they ever had, no doubt. Apparently he is
also the only ex-Crimsonite with whom Fripp still does not get on with,
to the point that on the box set Frame By Frame he gets Adrian Belew to
re-record the vocal on "Cadence and Cascade" and Tony Levin to redo the
bass on "Bolero". But I digress. "Indoor Games" is OK but slight, "Happy
Family" is an interesting idea wrecked by the vocal effects and the
directionlessness (is that a word?) of the jam. "Lady Of The Dancing
Water" is pretty, with lovely flute by Mel Collins. As for the "Lizard"
suite, it's quite good, for mine. Big surprise you chose "Prince Rupert
Awakes" as your favourite, you big Yes fan you!!! (so am I anyway). About
the only time KC did a pop song, in the 70s anyway. The various
instrumental passages are nice, no better but no worse than "The Devil's
Triangle". Robert Fripp's guitar in "Prince Ruper's Lament" is awesome,
so mounful. The best bit about the suite - virtually no vocals from
Haskell!! I'm gonna give this a solid 7 out of 10.
BTW, it is true that Yes offered Robert Fripp the guitarist's job before
getting Steve Howe, but Fripp turned it down. I have also heard say that
Fripp turned around and offered Jon Anderson the permanent vocal spot
with KC after Haskell split (Haskell left 2 days after finishing the
album BTW), but Anderson was too committed to Yes. So there you go.
Akis Katsman (watta502@yahoo.gr) (9/30/03)
The worst Crimson album I have listened by far, but not a bad one. The
main problems are 1) Haskell's horrible voice, and 2) A lot of dull
moments. Both 'Indoor Games' and 'Happy Family' would have been better if
there was a better singer. I like 'Circus' and 'Lady Of The Dancing
Water' much, especially the former, but the title track, while not bad,
compared to other 20+ min. prog songs (i.e. 'Karn Evil 9' and 'Supper's
Ready') seems very dull and completely emotionless. I like 'Prince
Ruppert Awakes' (that with Jon Anderson) and the jazzy feel of 'Bolero:
The Peacock's Tale' but then I get tired, although the rest of side 2
isn't that horrible. The end with the tape effect is cool, though. I warn
you: Don't start your Crimson collection with this one, get the debut
instead. The lyrics are iffy, too. I recommend this album only to
hardcore jazz-rock weirdos. 6/10 on a good day, no more.
Mike (thedukeofprunes@webtv.net) (12/23/03)
A very strange album indeed. Not for the average King Crimson fan but
for serious die-hard fans only. The best and strongest track I feel is
'Cirkus'. I love the melody in the middle with Fripp's mellotron and Mel
Collin's sax solo. Gordon Haskell was not a very strong vocalist and I'm
not sure he was even right for the band. This guy actually made a
handfull of solo albums that aren't that bad. Why is he laughing for no
reason at the end of 'Indoor Games"? I have no idea and it's maybe best
no one ever finds out. The beginning melody of 'Bolero' I feel is
beautiful and does send chills up my spine (what can I say...I'm a
sucker for a good melody) but soon bores me with clumsy jazz noodling
and endless jamming. Basically for me 'Lizard' and their next album
'Islands' are somewhat boring but aren't that bad. Not bad albums but
not any of my favorite Crimson albums. They sound horribly outdated and
have not stood the test of time, they got better though, way better. But
you have to hand it to Robert Fripp, he was trying to do something new
and creative. Did he succeed? Yes and no.
"Eden, Scott C Mr (Contractor) MONROE" (scott.eden1@us.army.mil) (4/21/04)
Yet again, my musical tastes differ from the majority of other
listeners. Lizard is my favorite Crimson LP, with Red being a close
second. On the other hand, I think Poseidon and Islands are the weakest
albums, though neither is bad and both have some killer tracks on them.
I'm also not a big fan of "In The Court". For the life of me, I cannot
understand why sooooooo many people dislike Lizard, even hard core
Crimson fans. For me, everything works on this album and there is not a
weak song on it, with Lizard and Cirkus being my favorites. I pretty
much never listen to "Lady Of The Dancing Water". This is definitely
Crimson at their most avant-garde, with a heavy dose of jazz elements
thrown in, making it hard to put a label on it. It is certainly unique
among the Crimson catalog, though Islands would probably be the closest
relative to it. I think the lyrics are Sinfield's best. They are
typical Sinfield, maybe even more so, which is probably not to everyone's
tastes. Gordon Haskell's vocals are great and I think Sinfield's
treatments of them work well. I have to admit, though, that after
reading the great "In The Court Of King Crimson" by Steve Smith, I find
Gordon to be a nonstop whiner and complainer and whose opinions on the
album are off mark. I think Andy McCulloch's drumming on this album is
superb and one of the best on a Crimson album. He is certainly the
forgotten Crimson drummer, which is a shame. He uses the most odd
signature drumming style I've heard on a Crimson album and is playing all
over the place. Admittedly, he is more of a top end drummer here, with
little of the power that Bruford (and other drummers) brought. Maybe
that is why is does not get the credit he deserves. If you've never
focused on his playing here, give it a listen and you may agree with me.
I can understand why this is not everyone's favorite Crimson album. It
is their "Tales From Topographic Oceans", which also happens to be my
favorite Yes album. Both albums generate more controversy than any other
in each band's catalog. I don't think I've even read a single positive
review from any of the band members about this album. This does not
bother me, as musicians are usually the worst judges of their own music.
For the record, I think Lizard is a great album. As is typical for my
musical luck, this was the only Crimson lineup that never toured (in
terms of core members), thanks to Gordon for acting immature and stomping
out the door like a child as tour preparations were being made. Too bad,
as this would have been a most interesting tour. The Island tour did
feature some Lizard material, but Boz did not have the chops to pull them
off. Similarly, Ian Wallace's drumming never impressed me and I do not
think he was capable of replicating Andy McCulloch's style.
[ BTW, my interest in Crimson is limited to the 1969-1984 period ]
Steve Rogers (beeflin@mac.com) (7/25/04)
Absolutely agree. Such good musicians could have made a great album if
it wasn't for the abysmal vocals and abysmal lyrics. Very frustrating.
Wouldn't it be great to hear it without the vocals...?
Best song: Song Of The Gulls
The bad news of the album comes in the form of the first seventeen minutes, a combination of two tracks, Formentera Lady and Sailor's Tale. The actual song isn't that bad - after pointless instrumental wanking for about two minutes, we're greeted with a pleasant late-60's-style easterny psychadelic ballad (with prog lyrics, of course), and while it's nothing genial, it's still a nice escape from stuff like Happy Family off the last album. Unfortunately, Fripp just couldn't let a good thing go undisturbed - over the next seven minutes or so, he goes for dissonance overload, throwing in choirs purposefully singing off key and various instruments just playing whatever. Then the band breaks into The Sailor's Tale, and while Fripp gets a lengthy guitar solo that might seem alright in its bizarreness, it pales to any number of his efforts before and after. And the rest of the music, well, it's basically just more of the same - instrumental noise taking the place of good ideas and cohesion. I will admit that some bits and pieces of the jamming are interesting on a purely technical level, but once again, I've heard much much better in my life.
Amazingly, though, the rest of the album is totally unlike that seventeen minute waste. The next two tracks are, like, actual songs! With real melodies, real dynamics, real riffs, you name it. Just as well, Sinfield all of a sudden develops a decent talent for lyric-writing - The Letter is clear, concise and non-cliched in its tale of one man and two women, Ladies of the Road is filled with puns about screwing groupies, and the closing title track provides nice imagery of floating on your own private island. Nothing pretentious, nothing meaningless, just some nice texts allowing for actual resonance with the listener. So hats off to our favorite lyrical dork.
But back to the music. The opening melody of The Letter is quietly eerie, with Boz setting the scene of the first two verses, and then out of nowhere comes this GREAT mellotron/brass riff with Fripp doing some of his stuff over it. Then there's some slight sax noodling to build up the tension further, with Fripp adding some guitar coloring once more, and following that Boz starts screaming the "IMPALED ON NAILS OF ICE" part in a way that really conveys the hurt and frustration of the wife, before going back to the quiet eerie melody that goes with the wife killing herself. Now don't get me wrong, this isn't the greatest rock song of all time or anything like that, but it's just such a nice pleasant surprise to discover that Fripp could, in fact, pen a solid rock song, albeit with some necessary Crimson twisting.
Then of course there's Ladies of the Road, with naughty music to go with the naughty lyrics. The verse melody drips with subtle sleaze, the instrumental breaks are bass heavy with great sleazy sax parts, there's bits and pieces of typical Fripp guitar, and there's even an ultra-charming Beatlesesque chorus to match! WHERE WERE YOU ON LIZARD??!!!
Now the next two tracks are a bit more "pretentious," but in a good way. Prelude: Song of the Gulls is a 100% classical composition by Fripp, who takes full advantage of the presence of all the instrumentalists available to him in the studio. It doesn't break any ground in classical music, of course, but I don't really mind that - the "classic" era of classical music was characterized by rigid rules and standards, after all, and this is just another quality composition following those rules. Besides, Fripp is one person I'd much prefer to stick to "regular" classical than modern classical - if ever there was a creative person who could afford some (not total, but some) "rigidity," it's Fripp.
Then there's the title track, a pleasant nine-minute ballad driven by keyboards and Mark Charig's (one of the album's featured players) cornet. Whatever be, the music creates a really beautiful atmosphere - I really feel like I'm on a sea floating towards an island, except that for me, the sea I'm on is in outer space, and the island is somewhere in the middle of the gorgeous album cover. Major kudos go to Fripp for the restraint shown in this composition - the Fripp of the previous year would have tried to make the last six minutes of this into The Battle of Glass Tears, after all. Here, though, Fripp managed to create one of the ideal songs for listening to just before it's time to go to bed, and that's a compliment. Of course, for whatever reason, after the track ends, there's silence, and then a tape of Fripp giving some direction in the studio, followed by strings tuning up. Fripp's voice is neat, that's all I can say about that.
Overall, I can see how many KC fans could end up hating this - the second half of the album isn't really "progressive" at all, and the first half gives a bad name to experimentation in rock music. However, as one who judges music by its quality and not by how many points on the "progressive checklist" it matches, I can tell you that the second half of this album is very very enjoyable. Don't overspend on the album, but don't avoid it either.
Daniel and Corine Bosch (dcbosch@optusnet.com.au) (11/06/02)
Another year, another lineup! It must have been unsettling to Fripp for
this to keep happening. And with another lineup, another stylistic
change, leaving the jazz influenced freakouts behind for classical (on
the quieter pieces) and, on the louder pieces a sign of things to come -
hard rock. I have to admit I don't like this album any more than Lizard,
posibly a little less. The reason? Although this album has some killer
cuts ("The Letters", "Ladies Of The Road", "The Sailor's Tale") Thel
long, quiet pieces are a problem for me. "Formentera Lady" and "Islands"
are pretty, Boz sings them pretty well and the lyrics are not as bad as
the admittedly got at times on Lizard, but they don't do alot - they drag
on and on, not going anywhere. And "Prelude - Song Of The Gulls" is
pretty but hardly Crimson, if you ask me. All up, I tried to give this a
7, but could only manage a 6.5 out of 10
Don't know if you noticed, but there are a couple of rehashed ideas on
this album too. "The Letters" borrows it's melody entirely from an In The
Court Of The Crimson King era song called "Drop in", but has an entirely
different lyric and feel. Also, ever notice the similarity between
"Prelude" and the second movement of Fripp's "Suite No. 1" from The
Cheerful Insanity Of Giles Giles and Fripp? Something to think about.
Akis Katsman (watta502@yahoo.gr) (9/30/03)
One of the weakest Crimson albums. It has the beautiful classical piece
'Prelude: Song Of The Gulls' and the amazing title track (one of my
favourite Crimson songs ever), but the other songs are messy and not very
exciting. 'Formentera Lady' has a nice melody but it's too long, the
singer sings too quiet and the 'operatic' ending is dumb. 'The Letters'
and 'Ladies On The Road' are okay jazz-rock songs, but the lyrics suck
ass. I dig the saxophone part on 'Ladies' though. As for 'Sailor's Tale',
I don't have any problem with it, I can say I almost enjoy it, but give
me 'Fracture' or 'Larks pt.2' any day, I enjoy them much more. Not the
best album for a King Crimson introduction. I give Islands a 6.5/10.
Lazer59882@aol.com (11/17/03)
Terribly underrated by just about everyone (well not REALLY everyone).
Formentera Lady is overlong and a little wanky. BUT the melody is
beautiful in its simplicity, and Boz's oh-so-subtle variations on the
bassline keep it from getting too boring. The horn solo sounds like it
belongs on another song, as do the voices at the end because they're so
offf key. When the voices begin to die down, however, the song builds to
a crescendo with the strings, then finally fades into the cymbals of
Sailor's Tale. It takes awhile to get going, but when the sax solokicks
up its just thrilling and very jazzy. The guitar solo, dare I say, SUCKS!
Even the solo on the Earthbound version is better. Here we just have
noise-tuneless and cacaphonous. When the rest of the band comes back in
we get some stupid noises and more cacaphony which finally dies into
nothing for a few seconds. The Letters is great. The lyrics are seemingly
soap opera-ish until the end. The main song part is nice and the jazzy
midsection is wonderful. The way Fripp's guitar wail just slides down
into the quiter section with Boz's pulsing bass building
tension...masterful. Finally, for the last two verses, Boz really sings
here (mind you he's no Greg Lake), the verses louder and more powerful
than the former two. Next is Ladies of the Road. Great chorus and some
interesting instrumental passages, but i dont see the point. Boz doesnt
sing as much as he yells and it drags on too long. Also it doesnt fit
with ANYTHING in the KC catalogue. Ever. It's just so non KC. It's just
not my cup of tea. Prelude: Song of the Gulls is beautiful with the
uncredited string section. I dont neccessarily dig this type of classical
music (I prefer grand symphonies and the like) but it's great. Finally,
Islands closes the album. It too is beautiful. Mark Charig's cornet solo
- just behind the beat - over Fripps harmonium is a thing to behold.
You're absolutely right when you say Fripp shows restraint (though i dont
know the song you are referring to). No weirdness or pretentiousness,
just pure unadultered beauty. Ian's percussion is great in its
simplicity, just a 1-2-3-4 thing, but it helps build the tension to the
climax with the grand mellotron. I've heard rumors that the end (with
Fripp counting and the strings tuning up) was supposed to be the
beginning to Formentera Lady, which would explain the beginning of that
song's "pointless wanking." Either way, I like it.
Overall, I would give it a 8 (12), with the best song being Islands.
BTW: I bought this at the same time as To Our Children's Children's
Children and i listen to this much more. Interesting...
Mike (thedukeofprunes@webtv.net) (12/23/03)
Not a bad album really but not one of their best nor not one of my
favorite Crimson albums. I feel 'The Sailor's Tale' is the best and
strongest track on the album and it brings jazz fusion up a notch. This
album and their previous album (Lizard) I would recommend for serious
die-hard Crimson fans only.
"Saenz, Jason" (jsaenz@sagetelecom.net) (10/11/04)
Why does everybody bash and smash this album so bad? I just dont get it,
ISLANDS is not terrible at all, in fact it's really trippy and really
complex. Of course you do have to give it a couple of listens before you
are able to appreciate it, but once you understand where Mr. Fripp is
trying to take you it gets much better. I guess you have to really
understand it a lot and let yourself get into it. If you just want to
put a number on an album, then I agree with your rating, if you want to
rate music, I think you need to think about that crappy rating again, why
does everyone rate this so low? I know you might look for stability in a
record or some good hooks, but come on man! All we are saying is give
ISLANDS a chance, you might like it a lot!
Matti.Alakulju@upm-kymmene.com (12/27/07)
A nice little story, not directly about this album, but this line-up: As
you know, Fripp has always been unwilling to play his old hits, and I
admire and respect him hugely for that. Back in 1971, this band was playing
in Detroit, and the loud American audience was all the time requesting In
The Court or Schizoid Man or Epitaph. By the end of the gig old Bob got
pissed off and decided to give them some old hits.
Best song: Schizoid Men
The first disc is what you'd expect out of a standard live album - a bunch of performances taken from the tour and strung together to seem like a full (or at least a good chunk) concert. Frankly, the first disc isn't much to get excited about - some performances are great, some are just good, and some are quite ehn. The opening Pictures of a City loses the hard edge it once had, with the main riff becoming more lounge-jazzy to less-than-great effect. The Letters is done mostly pro forma, with one unfortunate exception - rather than belting out the "impaled on nails of ice" lines, he just sings them quietly, and while I guess that works in its own way, I'd much rather have some screaming there. And Formentera Lady is, well, Formentera Lady - starts out ok, then just becomes pointlessly wanky. There's also a pair of jazz improv thingamajigs that pop up on here - Groon (which kinda sucks, has no vocals, and takes up a whole seven minutes) and Get Thy Bearings (a Donovan cover with some needless vocals, that's at least better than Groon). If you can come up with better descriptions, I'd like to see you try.
On the other hand, The Sailor's Tale turns out to translate VERY well into a live environment - for whatever reason, my brain is more willing to accept a jam of that nature outside the studio than within. Cirkus also improves from before, primarily because Burrell's vocals are ten times what Haskell's were in the song - I almost find myself getting swayed by the meaningless imagery here, and that's something I wouldn't have said before. It's also taken at a slower tempo than on Lizard, and for whatever reason this seems to up the intensity of the piece enough to make it quite tolerable. There's also a terrific version of Schizoid Man on this disc, with the band booming and jamming in a way they don't even approach elsewhere on the album - Burrell does a GREAT job of singing the verses, even without distortion, and the mid-song jam is just what you'd expect from a high quality Schizoid Man. And finally, the disc closes out with one of the biggest surprises imaginable - a forty five second snippet of In the Court of the Crimson King ... done as a BLUES number. Yup, you read that right - I wish they'd included the whole track, but what's here is definitely nice for some giggles.
As you might guess, while the first disc is ok, it is definitely NOT the justification for giving this compilation an 8. Disc 2 is one of the best ideas Fripp has ever had in compiling an archive release - after the first track, which is the first verse of a live Schizoid Man, the next 50-odd minutes are various Schizoid jams (from this same tour) strung together without break (well, sort of - for whatever reason, there's about a minute of silence in the middle of track 11, before we get yet another jam). Let me tell you something - if this disc is any indication, this was a GREAT era for 21st Century Schizoid Man. One incredible blast jam comes after another, waves of WILD saxaphone and guitar solos keep pouring out, and it never EVER gets boring. Some solos are jazzier, some more psychadelic, and every last one of them is improvised jamming BLISS.
In short, NO fan of the band can possibly be without the second disc. The first disc could be done without quite easily, but it's still ok, so if you see this for a reasonable price, make sure to swipe it up.
Eric Benac (sonicdeath10@hotmail.com) (04/29/08)
I quite like this live album, and didn't even know it existed until
reading your review! This particular group did have some playing
talent, and some good songs, but I'm glad they broke up
because...well, uh, the Larks group is a tad bit better, I think.
Still, good stuff on here, with most of the downfalls of this
particular version of the group handily avoided.
By the way, you do well to avoid Earthbound except for one thing: the
rendition of 21st Century Schizoid Man is the best I've ever heard. I
know that sounds weird, but Boz's screaming on the track, while
rough, fits it, even with the weird synthesizer effect they throw on
it for no reason. The weird, thick sound of the rest of the album
actually fits really well onto this song. Robert has never sounded so
dirty in his guitar playing, and the rest of the band thump and blow
on the song in ways like...well, like the Schizoid tracks on Ladies
of The Road...still, it's really the best I've heard, so the album
is, unfortunately, not something you can avoid...I'm just trying to
get you to pay 8 bucks on a shitty album, see? It's fun. The rest of
it is funk blues improv scat nonsense that does NOT serve the King
Crimson name well. Fripp seems pissed off and illustrates it with his
solos and that's kind of fun.
Best song: Larks' Tongues In Aspic Parts 1 and 2
The new direction for the band, as defined on this album, can best be described (in my opinion) as "Heavy Avant-Prog." If we accept Robert's description of the initial King Crimson as "Hendrix plays Bartok," this new version can be described as "Hendrix plays Eric Dolphy plays Bartok." This album is prog rock, but rather than pushing the stylistic boundaries of the Court formula, like most bands in the genre were doing at the time (not that I'm putting those bands and albums down, you see), it instead seeks to totally break down and rebuild the genre from its very foundation. Combining the already established manner of Schizoid jamming with elements of avantgarde jazz, and framing these jams within a tight mathematical setup of climaxes, rises and falls, it's little wonder that some critics of the day referred to this as "outer limits" music. NOBODY was making music like this, and no wonder - nobody else had a combination of people conducive to making this sort of art, and it's doubtful that many others would have even if they could.
The new KC lineup included six people, counting a replacement lyricist for Peter Sinfield (who went off to join ELP), one Robert Palmer-James. Palmer-James, for better or worse, doesn't really have any impact on the album whatsoever - three of the six tracks contain lyrics, and while they're not blatantly icky, there's not much in the way of consistent imagery contained within. Easy Money does have some amusing anti-capitalist rantings, but I've heard better. Still, there's something to be said for the fact that there's no "Stake a lizard by the throat" to be found here.
Now, the lyrics may be irrelevant, but that obviously can't be extended to the rest of the players. The bass and vocals void is filled by one John Wetton, previously a member of Family and later of Asia fame. He's not a great vocalist, but he's unquestionably the best the band has had since losing Lake, and his bass-playing skills are simply superb. He's not afraid to play at a higher volume than normal, or to put different effects on his bass, and he's able to both create a solid foundation and to augment the general sound well.
The most novel part of the sound of this lineup comes courtesy of David Cross, master of violin and viola (and mellotron, as needed). The modern cynic might feel a bit uncomfy at the idea of a fulltime violin player in a rock (ha) band, given that history hasn't shown this can produce consistently tasteful results, but such fears should most definitely be laid to rest. Cross shows an amazing ability to accentuate the dark mood that permeates so much of the album, yet is also able to create occasional stretches of surprising lovliness. There are also a number of passages that show him playing his instrument in such a way that definitely doesn't match anything I've heard anywhere else - it's hard to be innovative in playing a violin, but he definitely pulls it off.
The biggest coup for the band, however, came in the percussion section. First, Robert managed to snatch up a maniacal eccentric by the name of Jamie Muir. His percussion style was WILD, a kind suited to total avantgarde improvisation, and very different from anything previously found in prog rock. He's responsible for many of the most exciting and unexpected moments on the album, throwing in a useful enough dose of instability to really give the album an edge. Yet as interesting as this is, his brand of insanity is the kind that is much more effective in either a distilled fashion, or even better, a kind useful in a mentor-student relationship. In other words, Muir needed a student...
...and who should need a teacher but Bill Bruford. Bruford, by his own admission, had peaked with Yes' Close to the Edge - he believed that any followup by Yes could only be "Son Of Close to the Edge," and he did not see what else he could do within a Yes context. So he tendered his resignation from the band before that album's tour; Fripp was all too happy to snatch him up, and Bruford was all too happy to have a new start. In my opinion, Bill had proven within Yes that he was one of the top three or so drummers in the whole rock world, but he did have one slight weakness - his style tended to be a bit too anal at times with his precise, jazzy rhythms. Under Muir's tutelage, Bruford took his previous style and crossed it with healthy doses of spontaneous, instinctual power, and in the process made himself (in my mind) the king of all drummers. His drumming on this album is nothing short of spectacular, combining the best aspects of his Yes work with stretches that defy all possible expectations of quality.
This bizarre mix of players and ideology introduces itself to the world in a big way with the opening 13-minute title track (part one - part two closes out the album). The first 2:50 or so is devoted to a relatively quiet marimba improvisation, with bits of chimes here and there, and also with occasional bits of violin (I guess... it's hard to tell what exactly is what on this album) chiming in to increase the ominous effect. About halfway through, Bruford begins slowly riding his cymbals, gradually increasing their volume as the marimbas fade into the background, raising the apprehension and feeling of expectation of the listener to very high degree. Then the main piece begins - Cross begins playing an INCREDIBLY spooky violin line while Fripp plays some distorted notes here and there, then disappears for a couple of seconds, then builds it back up again, and then there's a MONSTROUS distorted heavy riff played a few times (with some soloing overdubbed). Then it's violin again, the distorted guitar notes come back with heavy bass in tow, the tension builds again, and then there's that riff again! Fripp throws in a very brief typical guitar line for him, and the band breaks into a weirdass jam, featuring Muir creating rhythmic woodblock noise in the midst of it all. This goes on for about a minute, the groove slows down, and then they break into another even wilder jam (app. 6:15-7:35). Fripp's guitar and Wetton's bass are most prominent here, but take special care to notice the absolutely INCREDIBLE drumming from Bruford here. The combination of power and speed here, oh man, this has no analogy anywhere else in the rock world, I can tell you that.
Eventually, around 7:40, the jam ends, and the piece returns to Cross' hands. His playing over the next three or so minutes can't really be explained in terms of rock music, but ... have you ever heard the Camille Saint-Saens piece Dance Macabre? It has this whole creepy "dead people at dawn" atmosphere to it, and for whatever reason, I'm always reminded of it by Cross' playing here. But I digress. Eventually, this playing fades out, the initial violin lines pop back in (the ones before the "main theme" pop up), and we hear a bunch of really quiet voices mumbling things over the lines, before the violin and bass help fade things out. And that is how you build a brilliant introduction to an album.
The next three tracks aren't as brilliant, but part of the reason for that is that they have lyrics, and as such are closer to being "normal" songs than the exploratory opening track. Not that normalcy is inherently inferior to experimentation, of course - I usually consider prog tamed with "convention" to be superior, but let's face it, this incarnation (at this point) was better at experimentation than songwriting. Still, that hardly means these tracks are anywhere near bad. Book of Saturday is the weakest of the lot, a decent but thorougly unspectacular ballad with bits of weird guitar and violin sound to accompany an ok melody. Exiles, on the other hand, is a major winner - the lyrics don't add much to the effort, but the vocal melody (and delivery) is terrific, and Cross' violin theme ads more than enough resonance to make up for the lyrical deficiencies. The song does have the drawback of a little too much meandering in the instrumental breaks, with Fripp messing with spacey feedback and ideas that have nothing to do with the rest of the song, but hey, at least he makes the song totally unique by doing so.
Flipping over to side two, we're greeted with a bizarre percussive rhythm, overlaid with all sorts of gritty guitar feedback and wordless syllabic vocals, serving as an introduction to Easy Money. The song itself has a really cool vocal melody, with all sorts of neat percussion underneath that, and then it breaks into a really eerie, pretty quiet (yet suprisingly intense in its quietness, and I'd guess because of the quietness) jam, with Fripp leading the way with some absolutely terrific soloing. There's bits of mellotron here and there to augment it, but the emphasis is clearly on Fripp, until about halfway in, where Wetton becomes the highest instrument in the jam, not letting it down in the slightest. Not surprisingly, the song then closes out with another iteration of the verse melody, louder and more intense this time around, fading out with some VERY disturbing laughing sounds. It's hardly the best track on the album, but it's definitely a worthy inclusion.
So thus ends the sung portion of the album. But not the album itself! In fitting fashion, the band decided to close out the album with 14-and-a-half minutes of instrumentals, split over two tracks. The first, The Talking Drum, is just about the textbook definition of how to properly work a lengthy crescendo. It starts off very, VERY quiet (with a buzzing fly sound, for some reason), with Muir randomly banging on bongos (I guess), until Wetton starts playing a simple bassline again and again about 1:40 in, with Bruford riding his snare in lockstep fashion. And then Cross pops up, working off a brilliant up-tempo (yet somber) theme and playing it every which way. Eventually Fripp joins the party, throwing in his own theme that he plays every which way. Slowly but surely, the intensity reaches an utterly feverish pitch, with all these seemingly disparate ideas working as one to drive the listener into a total frenzy. My brother and I once decided that, essentially, this is the music you'd hear on the elevator down to hell, and I still stand by that assessment.
Then out of nowhere, the piece grinds to a halt, there's a screech of guitar feedback, and we launch into Larks' Tongues in Aspic 2, the best riff-rocker prog has ever seen. In some ways, I prefer later live versions to this studio original, but make no mistake, this original has an atmosphere and aspects untouched by later versions. Fripp manages to take his high quality riff and present it in (I count) three variations over seven minutes, with all sorts of cool interplay between guitar and bass and ESPECIALLY Cross' violin. The sound that Cross squeezes out of his instrument at the 4-minute mark of the song, over the heaviest riff, is just about the scariest noise I can imagine ever coming from a string instrument. I'll tell you what it sounds like to me - it sounds like a lark screaming (after all, the title is a recipe involving larks), and for whatever reason, the thought of a screaming bird just sends all sorts of horrid feelings through me. His soloing over the next minute or so shouldn't be forgotten either, though. In any case, after what seems like forever of building up the tension of the "softer" theme of the song, we hit the final climax, which has an apocalyptic sound not really matched elsewhere in music. It then seemingly fades out forever, and we end with a slow, slow slide until the last note of feedback disappears.
And there you are. If any significant general flaw can be expressed for the album, it's that it is most definitely music solely for ears and brain, and not at all for the heart. Even then, though, the band is excused by the fact that the music is so well constructed and planned out that, despite a dearth of actual heartfelt resonance, the band is able to simulate it pretty well by messing with your feelings of comfort and well-being. Point is, it's a friggin' great album, and one that NO prog fan worth a grain of salt can do without. Also, one last thing - do not try to judge the quality of this album after one or two listens, the way you would most other albums. I tried to take that approach with it, and as a result I feared this album like nobody's business. Listen to it once, put it away for a while, listen again, put it away, etc until you start to get an idea of what's going on. One day, you'll find that the structured aspects of the album start to stand out from the chaos, and soon it will start growing on you until you wonder how you ever made it through life without it.
Daniel and Corine Bosch (dcbosch@optusnet.com.au) (11/13/02)
I'm gonna say it right off the bat - this is my favourite King Crimson
album. With it the Cross/Fripp/Wetton/Bruford (and Muir for this album)
incarnation of the band is born. And how! This is where KC move away from
orchestral style prog and the jazzy styles it had used on all the
previous efforts and invented a much tougher sound. Improvisation, for
better or worse, became the main emphasis. All the musicians are
brilliant, which was not true for any but the very first incarnation of
Crim up to this point. Yes, the lyrics are not as distinctive as
Sinfield's, but they are not the emphasis - sound, improv and trying new
things musically are the order of the day. Every track is great, even
"Book Of Saturday", which showed there was more to this Crimson than just
hardcore improv and scaring people! "Exiles" is the one track that harks
back to their past. To my ears, have Greg Lake sing it and it would not
have sounded out of place on In The Court. My favourite tracks, however,
are the three instrumentals. I can't think of adequate words to describe
how wonderful they are to me. 10 out of 10 seems horribly inadequate!
bsitting@mail.math.ucsb.edu (11/13/02)
Wow! This album took me at least 6 listens or so before I even started to
appreciate this album and see any relative order to this album. (And even more
to like most of the songs here.) "Book of Saturdays" is perhaps the weakest
track here. But, it seems very jazzy to me, minus those backwards guitar solos.
The album really starts cooking for me (minus the superb first half or so of
LTA part 1, love that CRRRUNCH!) is "Easy Money". It seems the percussion is
off the beat from the riff in the intro., and yet it seems so right! My
personal favorites has to be "The Talking Drum" (painfully great buildup here,
with seemeingly eastern influence) and "LTA part 2" (another great riff, and
good rhythm section, too. The violin screeches are the only thing painful to my
ears). Overall, 9(12), due to the intentional dissonance from time to time and
it taking SO long to get into. (But, I still highly recommend it, if you have
the patience.)
ryan boyce (rboyce73@hotmail.com) (11/27/02)
Yeah, this album is pretty scary. I'll be honest the first time I heard
part 1, with the violin introduction, I was thinking, "What the f...?" But
the album grew on me. Man, part 3 rules doesn't it?
Akis Katsman (watta502@yahoo.gr) (9/30/03)
Wow! A really good album! I needed some time for it to grow on me, but I
finally got it! Both parts of the instrumental 'Larks' are amazing, the
whole band shines here, especially Fripp and Cross. The intro of the
first part is too long, but I don't mind since the rest of it kicks fat
ass. Love the Fripp solos! Part 2 is maybe even better, proto-'prog
metal'. I think bands such as Rush and Dream Theater owe a lot to this
album. The other instrumental, titled 'The Talking Drum' is brilliant and
scary as hell. The violin is superb. The 'real songs' are great too.
'Exiles' is maybe the best Crimson ballad since 'Epitaph', with excellent
violin and vocal melodies. 'Easy Money', though not an absolute favourite
of mine, has some kick-ass parts and lots of weird effects. Cool! And
there's 'Book Of Saturday' too, a nice pretty short ballad. In general,
one of the best and most experimental Crimson albums and a very good buy.
8.5/10.
Trfesok@aol.com (05/03/07)
The musicianship on this album is absolutely amazing. If you had only
heard Asia, you'd find it hard to believe that Wetton ever played
bass like this! There's a section in the title track where it
threatens to go into "Moonchild"- type ambience, but, fortunately, it
doesn't. Otherwise, no real flaws in this album, if you like the
sound. "Accessible noise" is how I'd put it. Still, as a more
traditional prog fan, I do like the first album better. I miss the
folk (did Fripp ever pick up the acoustic again after this album?)
and classical influences that Fripp almost totally jettisons here.
"Book of Saturday" comes closest (Wetton later did it live with more
conventional arrangements), but Fripp still can't resist putting in
one of his Frippertronic parts to weriden it up. The album can really
only be appreciated by listeners with a certain amount of maturity.
By the way, Richard-Palmer James was actually a founding member of
Supertramp, believe it or not. He left after their first album. Maybe
that explains why early Supertramp vaguely resembles early Crim.
Joe Bloggs (ericmushroomwilson@hotmail.co.uk)
I would disagree that Book of Saturday is a weak track. I think it's
beautiful and has a great melody. But I guess that's just one of
those subjectivity things. For whatever reason, I enjoy that
particular track more than you or some of the other commentors appear
to.
Well, anyway, this is a very good album. I've heard some people say
that Jamie Muir's percussion detracts from the music but I don't
agree at all, I think it adds to it if anything and I like the
approach of just using any old thing as percussion (if you've ever
seen the list of his various instruments and objects used from
somewhere in the liner notes, there's a lot of odd stuff used on the
album). The riff that opens Easy Money is very good as is the
wordless vocal melody after it. Larks' Tongues Part 2 is built around
a great riff and is a very good piece although I have to say it can
sound a bit tame compared to some of the live versions. Conversely,
though, many of the live versions kind of lack the clarity of the
studio recording. Larks' Tongues Part 1 is very creepy and unnerving
I think. When I listened to the album on headphones, Lark's Part 1
pretty much scared the hell out of me. Did you ever notice a part
where a quiet voice says something ending something like "to hang by
your neck upon a gibbet until you are dead"? I think it's a recording
of a radio play or something.
Best song: Easy Money
Now, you'd think that, faced with the task of assembling a studio album from live peformances, Fripp would make sure to only choose tracks from a show where the band was at the top of its game. Well, all I can say there is that Fripp and myself have different definitions of "at the top of its game" - while parts of this concert are absolutely great, there's also a lot of spots where the band doesn't seem to be firing on all cylinders. By this time, the band had been reduced to a 4-piece - Muir left to live in a monastery - and while Bruford does more than his fair share to fill the void, I get the sense that Muir's manic energy could have helped this performance immensely. Neither Larks' II or Schizoid Man, which close out the show, come anywhere NEAR their studio counterparts - in the former, it seems to me that the band is just more or less going through the motions, and in the latter, the Schizoid jam manages to actually be, dare I say it, boring. Fripp doesn't do anything special with his solo to substantially grab the listener's attention, and nobody seems to have the guts to jump in and pick up the slack.
This sense of blase extends beyond those two tracks, unfortunately. Book of Saturday is totally pro forma, and Lament, which would pop up on the next album, is a total disaster, thanks to Wetton's vocals. Supposedly, it was around this time that Wetton started ingesting cocaine like bread, and I can't help but think that the way his vocals are so unbelievably out-of-tune here has something to do with that fact. There's also an especially yawn-inducing improv entitled The Fright Watch (obviously a "counterpart" to the ballad The Night Watch, which would also appear on the next album, and function as the lead single), interesting only in the way it sets the scene for The Talking Drum, which in turn goes into Larks.
After all this, there's really four reasons to even consider looking for this album. First off, the opening runthrough of Easy Money is FABULOUS, with the live atmosphere giving Wetton's slurred wordless singing even more intensity than before, and the band doing a great great job in all aspects. Second, while the already-mentioned Fracture has some issues from a composition standpoint (not too many, though), it's not hard to see why Fripp chose THIS as the album take. Third, Exiles is just gorgeous - Wetton's vocals are actually an asset here, giving even more resonance than before, and even Fripp's diddling has more of an impact than before. And finally, The Talking Drum, despite the boredom bookending it, is spectacular - it doesn't deviate from the original in terms of general structure, but the band manages to build up the tension even further than they did in the studio, and that definitely says something.
Still, that's not a lot of the album. If you're a hardcore, you'll want this for sure, but if you're not, you should definitely give it some thought before you take Fripp's full-hearted recommendation for this at face value.
Best song: The Great Deceiver
To be fair, three of the eight tracks don't actually match the above description, so that kinda helps. One of them kind of blows, though - the softer part of Lament is pretty, with a good vocal performance from Wetton, but the more "rocking" part has some obnoxious screaming vocals to go with instrumental parts that have an overall clumsy feel to them. On the other hand, though, the opening The Great Deceiver is one of the best songs Crimson ever did, full of whacky melody twists, gruff and fast rhythm work, and a NEAT electric violin line on top of it all. It also has some hilarious lyrics against organized religion, inspired by a band trip to Rome. Supposedly, Fripp visited The Vatican and nearby living areas, and found his way to a gift shop in the area. He went in, and sure enough, saw that they sold, among other things, cigarettes, ice cream bars, and figurines of the Virgin Mary. Needless to say, he was disgusted, and related the tale to the band - the result was the text found here.
The other "conventional" song, The Night Watch, can basically be categorized as "King Crimson plays The Moody Blues." The lyrics are nothing special whatsoever, but the melody is rock solid balladeering, and even Fripp's guitarwork, bizarre sounds for a ballad and all, manages to shape the song into something quite moving. Not surprisingly, it was issued as the lead single for the album - even though it had little to do with Crimson's new direction as a whole, it certainly was a better impetus for buying the album than the instrumental stuff...
Ah yes, the instrumental stuff. One of them, the closing Fracture, is a Fripp-penned piece recorded at the aforementioned Amsterdam concert. I'm not in love with it, to tell the truth - at 11:17, it's dreadfully overlong, taking way too much time to develop itself through its various themes. As a six minute piece or so, though, it would rule mercilessly - Fripp does a great job here of making the whole-tone scale motives quite engaging (in limited doses, of course), and the parts where it starts to rock hard and loud are a pleasure-and-a-half to headbang to. So yeah, it can stick around.
The rest, though, is pure improvisation with audience noises edited out. The Mincer has some overdubbed vocals in the last half (the song just stops out of nowhere at the end, by the way, as if the tape just stopped), but the rest of the track is just a sort of ok groove. As opposed to We'll Let You Know and the title track, which are less-than-ok attempts at grooves. We'll Let You Know occasionally TRIES to congeal into something solid, but it basically spends the entire time trying to figure out what it wants to do, and in the end accomplishes nothing. As for the title track, it enters a VERY intense groove for a short time in the middle of the piece, but that's only a very small bit - the rest just kinda diddles around, hoping that something interesting will happen.
One slightly redeeming instrumental comes from Trio - as with the other improvs, it takes a while to figure out what it wants to be, but eventually, the mellotron, violin and bass are able to circle around each other in a very delicate manner. I'd prefer it if they'd taken this idea into the studio and polished it up, but I guess there's something to be said for the spontaneity of improvisation, so whatever.
Overall, I don't hate this album, but it's definitely nothing great. Reviews of the album from that time tended to rave about how dynamic and complex it was, but for crying out loud, if you're just making stuff up as you go along, of COURSE it's not going to have a trivial structure. Point is, this album has aged much worse than the albums bookending it, and I'd only recommend it to people who really love those albums (and even then, no guarantees of liking this much).
Daniel and Corine Bosch (dcbosch@optusnet.com.au) (11/20/02)
Sometimes I think this album gets a bum rap. Sure, it's not as good as
Larks' Tongues In Aspic (but what is?!!?) but I think there is still alot
of good music here. "The Great Deceiver" was the very first King Crimson
song I ever heard - it blew me away then and it still does today. The
other "songs" ("Lament", "The Night Watch") are both excellent too,
particularly "The Night Watch", which I think is Richard Palmer-James'
best lyric for the band (it helps that it's about Rembrandt and I'm half
Dutch!). As for the improvs, "We'll Let You Know" is a little rambly but
short, "The Mincer" I think has a good, creepy feel to it, "Trio" is very
pretty but the first 90 seconds is just too quiet, the title track is a
long improv which works in bits and is a little dull in others. Finally
"Fracture" seems to me like a sequel to "Larks' Tongues In Aspic Part II.
I agree that it is overlong - if it were, say, seven or so minutes long
it would be killer, but there are still some nice riffs in it. Overall I
do like this album. 8.5 out of 10. BTW, the more I listen to this album,
the more David Cross I hear. He is maybe not used quite as extensively as
on the predecessor, but he is there plenty, including some very good
keyboard work.
Akis Katsman (watta502@yahoo.gr) (9/30/03)
Similar to the previous album, just a little less exciting and more
filler. The high points are 'The Great Deceiver' (which is great
indeed!), a fantastic album opener with a kick-ass riff and excellent
vocals from Wetton, 'The Night Watch', another great epic ballad similar
to 'Exiles' and perhaps the best song on the album, and the noisy
'Fracture' which although too long, has some really great moments (like
the awesome ending). 'Lament' and 'We'll Let You Know' are okay too, the
first being a ballad which then turns to a hard rock song with cool
screams from Wetton and the other is a short groovy improvisation, I
enjoy it. However, the last three songs on side 1, while having a couple
of good moments, are annoying. 'Trio' is just pointless chamber music, it
does nothing to me. 'The Mincer' starts cool, but the vocals at the end
are awful and the ending is like they ran out of tape (I think it
happened, indeed) and the title track is not much exciting than 'Moonchild',
although it has a nice short groove somewhere in the middle. In
general, an album which summarizes both the good and the bad sides of
King Crimson. Buy Larks' Tongues In Aspic first, it's much better. I give
this record a 7/10.
Best song: Starless
My first ever King Crimson listening experience came with this album, back in April of 1998, during my senior year at IMSA. One Saturday night, my theoretical girlfriend and I planned to watch The Blues Brothers in her dormitory, but I had some time to kill before then. One of my friends, a guy by the name of Andrew Baran who was into Crimson and Zappa, popped over to my room with a copy of Red in hand, insisting that I had to listen to this ASAP. He popped it in, and for the next forty minutes, this album scared the living daylights out of me - everything was so loud and distorted and unconventional in so many ways that it blew my Moody Blues-addled mind (NOTE: I still love the Moodies) - this was back when I thought that Led Zeppelin was the hardest music imaginable. I was scared off Crimson for the next two years or so - eventually, I could get into Court, but it was still a long time before I could enjoy any other King Crimson.
Time heals all wounds, however, and I can tell you now that, if you're going to buy only one King Crimson studio album, it should be Red. Released a month after Fripp "permanently" broke up the band, consisting mostly of outtakes from the previous sessions, this is just about the perfect melding of the initial incarnation of the band (ie Court and Wake) with the mid-70's version. By this time, the band had officially dropped down to a trio - Cross had formally left - but the album contains several "featured players" from King Crimson's past - besides Cross, there's Mel Collins, Marc Charig, and even Ian McDonald (who supposedly was going to become a fulltime member again, before Fripp decided to blow the band up) to give the new stylistics a healthy dose of the past.
This album also features a relatively trivial, yet very important new aspect for the band - this album is loud and distorted and heavy in a way that the music world had never seen before. While Black Sabbath and company had firmly staked out their claim by this time to defining heavy metal as we know it, Red is arguably the first album to take heaviness and move it in a direction that can be described as "proto-grunge." The heavy parts are distorted into oblivion, and the riffs and melodies are such that this only enhances the experience.
It also helps greatly that this album consists of actual, you know, songs. Much of it consists of improvised jamming, of course, but the framing of the improvs is, at the most base level, regular rock songs and ballads. Sure, it's tweaked and messed with far more than would be normal songs, but the framing not only makes sense, it's danged accessible! Heavy and complex as hell, but accessible!
Indeed, the opening title track, a Fripp-written instrumental, is everything Fracture wanted to be but failed to achieve. It's, well, it's a rock song, with verses and a chorus and a "middle 8" and all - it's just that it has no vocals. The various riffs RULE, the distorted guitar-bass interplay will make you feel like your face is getting sandblasted off, and the middle section, with what I guessed was Cross working with Wetton's bass (my brother has informed me that it is actually Marc Charig playing bowed double bass - fancy that) over Fripp's riffage, is one of the spookiest themes ever conceived by the band. In some ways, I prefer later live versions of the track - I like it when the guitar in the middle is louder and more echoey - but no other version quite has this level of intensity.
Up next is a mournful ballad, the eerie-as-hell Fallen Angel. The lyrics are actually quite nice - a sad tale of one's younger brother getting stabbed to death by street thugs in New York City. Wetton's vocals give both a warm sense of longing and a cold, detached stately feel, particularly in the chorus, and that's definitely nothing short of remarkable. As for the music, the main melody is impeccable, while the instrumental parts, from distorted backwards violins to creepy guitar arpeggios to free jamming by whatever instruments were available to Bruford's masterful drumming (this is not a trivial statement - Bruford's work on this album may very well be my favorite studio performance by any drummer ever), successfully make this an emotive experience not routinely found on a Crimson album. Hell, even Fripp's parts are potentially tear-jerking, and the last time that could be said was on, sheesh, Epitaph.
The next track is a slight, slight letdown, but it still rules pretty fiercely. One More Red Nightmare is a paranoid diatribe about being afraid of flying, with a good but NOT great riff serving as the foundation, yet it manages to still be great thanks to (a) Bruford's drumming (take note especially of the parts where it sounds like he's drumming on sheet metal) and (b) Wetton's vocals that depict the paranoia as well as anybody else in the world could. Damn, damn, the drumming on this track rules - the syncopated rhythm that Bruford uses again and again is one of the coolest things I've ever heard in my life. The midsong jam is a bit excessive, but still, I guess it does a plenty good job of depicting the nightmare foretold in the title, and again, the drumming! And yeah, I'm not quite sure why there's rhythmic handclapping during the jam, but whatever - the drumming! SHEESH.
The next track also doesn't help matters much, but it could still be much worse. Providence is a full-fledged improv, based around Cross' violin, but superior to most of the previous album in that it really has a dark, deathly mood to it that makes it creepier than anything there. 8 minutes is a bit excessive for such a piece, but the manner in which the violin crashes into the distorted bass and Fripp's various lines is such that the flow of the album doesn't seem affected for the worse much at all. Put another way, I could listen to Providence ten times in a row and not get as tired of it as I would to one listen of We'll Let You Know.
All of this, however, is childsplay to the fifth and final track, the 12:18 Starless. This track has grown on me to the point where it is, by far, my favorite King Crimson piece ever - the rest of the album could be outtakes from Lizard and I'd still give it an 11 if it contained this here track. Nowhere else on the album does the Court+Larks feel come across stronger, and nowhere else in their whole catalogue does Crimson come up with something so emotive and yet so complex at the same time. The opening theme is simply gorgeous - some lovely mellotron laying the foundation, Fripp playing lines as beautiful as the ones in Epitaph, and solid basslines and subtle percussion giving just enough color. The vocal melody is the best this incarnation of the band ever came up with, Wetton's singing reaches its peak, approaching Lake levels of bliss, and even the lyrics are good this time around, matching the imagery of the music so very very well. Yet this opening is only just the beginning - after John has gone through the three verses, all singing stops, and a a lengthy instrumental passage begins to close out the song. But how does the passage begin? With some unnecessary, perfunctory assault of complexity for its own sake, the kind you'd fear Fripp would want to embrace after SABB?
Nope - as if to play a sick joke on KC fans, Fripp begins playing ... a one-note guitar solo. Again and again and again and again. Around this, though, the band builds the tension to a level unheard of in rock music to that point, not even within their own Talking Drum. Wetton underlays Fripp with an interesting repeated theme, there's some bits and pieces of eerie violin scrapings in the background, and eventually Bruford starts banging on a woodblock at seemingly random (but actually quite calculated) intervals. Slowly but surely, things start getting a little louder - Fripp starts climbing the scale very very slowly, Wetton's bass increases in volume, and then Bruford starts using his regular drum kit. And so it keeps going like this - everything slowly gets louder and louder, more and more distorted, more rhythmic, and your brain wants it to resolve so badly but it just keeps going and going ... until Fripp stops playing around, and we get a sequence of Fripp playing call-and-response with his own distorted playing, building up the tension even MORE. Finally, the band breaks into a saxaphone-led jam, with Wetton and Bruford holding down an incredibly intense and tight rhythm. This slows down a bit, Ian plays some more while Bruford rides his cymbal, and then the one-note solo starts again, only this time distorted to the hilt and with everybody going balls out. And then, the grand reprise - the part coming out of the jam, where the saxaphone begins playing the guitar theme laid out by Fripp at the very beginning, while the mellotron comes back into play, is quite possibly the greatest passage ever conceived by the band. Complex, sure, but emotional as hell in its complexity - hell, even Bruford's drumming in that part makes me want to cry.
So yeah, this is the best studio album Crimson ever did. It gets denied a 14 because there is enough to slightly annoy me here and there, but make no mistake - that's just nitpicking. I am dreadfully fond of this album, and hope that you will join me in that assessment. If Crimson had never reformed, this would undoubtedly be one of the greatest farewells of all time, and that is not something to be taken lightly.
Daniel and Corine Bosch (dcbosch@optusnet.com.au) (11/20/02)
The last "studio" album by the 70's Crim, and yet another goody. "Red" is
one of the best instrumentals Fripp wrote. "Fallen Angel" is a very good
song, better musically than lyrically for mine. "One More Red Nightmare"
rocks, Wetton's voice soars, but I hate the handclaps in the instrumental
sections. Don't know why, they just bug me! "Providence" is another
improv, the only one on this album, and I like it when in the right mood,
othertimes I feel it is overlong. Finally, "Starless" is just brilliant.
The "song" section is very pretty, even if I don't quite know what the
lyrics are supposed to mean (maybe they're just meant to be evocative -
if that is the case they work). But the true treat of this track is the
instrumental section. The way it builds in intensity, Fripp's "less is
more" guitar approach, the crazy sax break, the heavy treatment of the
opening theme at the end - it all works brilliantly. It is not my
favourite Crimson album (that is, and always will be, Larks' Tongues In
Aspic), but it's darn close - 9.5 out of 10.
ryan boyce (rboyce73@hotmail.com) (11/27/02)
This is their best studio album. This is the album that got me into the
Fripp-Bruford-Wetton line-up. "Red" is powerful. "Fallen Angel" is
haunting and beautiful. "One More Red Nightmare" is cool. "Providence" is
weird, and "Starless"...might be their best song ever. What a great album.
What a shame they broke up and did not tour after right after they made this
album. Screw you Fripp!
Jason Phair (phairphunk@yahoo.com) (5/14/03)
Finally bought this album, and I only have one
complaint: it's too short!!
Seriously though, this album rocks. And I'd pay good
money to hear Greg Lake (circa 1972) sing Starless.
Akis Katsman (watta502@yahoo.gr) (9/30/03)
An absolutely awesome album and the best of the middle-period Crimson
era, that's for sure. It has the proto-grunge instrumental 'Red' which
kicks ass in a way that even Black Sabbath would have dreamed of. Second
is the awesome hard rock ballad 'Fallen Angel', with some of the best
Wetton vocals ever. And then what we have? 'One More Red Nightmare'? More
like 'One more Kick-ass song'! This song is perfect, no kidding. It's
powerful, scary, evil, awesome... yeah! This would be my favourite song
on the record if it weren't for the excellent last song
called 'Starless', one of my all-time favourite prog songs. You have to
hear it to understand how good it is! The first part is very, very
atmospheric with the mellotron. The second part is pretty scarry, Fripp's
guitar makes the job here. Then, we have the absolutely kick-ass third
part with an intense jazz feel and one of the best songs endings ever.
Brilliant!! This album is perfect, flawless, excellent......oh I almost
forgot. There is a somewhete pointless eight-minute avantgarde
improvisation called 'Providence' which drags the album a bit. The first
half of it does absolutely nothing for me, the second half has some cool
moments, though. I'm sorry, but I have to cut half a point off due to
'Providence'. Still, it's a 9.5/10, and an absolutely essential rock
album, along with In The Court... Just get it and see how much great King
Crimson was in the mid-seventies. I don't know anyone who hates this
album, so this says something.
Langas de los Langas (putolangas@hotmail.com) (12/31/05)
Interesting album. However, in my opinion it's very overrated.
a)"Providence". In an album with only five tracks, coming across
something like this is very disappointing. Yeah, it's creepy - but
that's the only compliment I can make. It's SO annoying. While
listening to it, I can hear, clear as crystal, two words in my head:
NOOOOOISEEEE... FIIIILLEEEEEEER... After giving it several tries, I
don't think I'll ever listen to it again, I can find better ways to
waste my time (maybe playing minesweeper for twenty hours?). I can't
even consider this a "song".
b) Out of the four actual "songs", "Starless" doesn't seem so great
to me. Maybe I need to give it a few more listens, but anyway, it's
the weakest song in the album to me.
c) It's so damn SHORT! "Red" is great as an introduction. But it's
just that, an introduction. So that leaves as with: A nice
introduction; two masterpieces (oh, did I forget to comment that
"Fallen Angel" is one of the most gorgeous prog ballads I have
listened to and that "One More Red Nightmare" scares the hell out of
me?); then eight minutes of unbearable noise; and a nice final track,
but a slight letdown after the previous material. That's all. Not
much, eh?
Due to this faults, I really can't give this album a high rating; but
anyway, tracks 2 and 3 are so good that, on their own, they make a
7(11). My favourite parts are, as you say, when "it sounds like he's
drumming on sheet metal" in "One More Red Nightmare". What an amazing
rhythm!!
brian@math.ucsb.edu (09/20/06)
I picked up this album quite some time after "LTIA". That said, I found
this album considerably more accesible and perhaps a better introduction to
this KC lineup (even if it was imploding at the time).
Although Fripp had to include another 'jam' on this album, I find
"Providence" considerably more tolerable than "Moonchild" off the debut.
Apart from that, I enjoy the rest of the album, especially the title
track and especially "Starless". In a way, "Starless" summarizes the
various aspects of KC to date, eben including an old member or two for
contributions. It is amazing how much tension Fripp is able to coax from a
one note guitar line with appropriate punctuation from Bill Bruford (Yes,
his drumming on this album is phenomenal).
In the end, if I were to give a KC album a 14, it would be this one, even
though "Providence" does bother me enough to reconsider such a thing.
Either way, this is my favorite album of theirs.
Prasiddha Gustanto (prasgustanto@hotmail.com) (08/30/07)
It is without a doubt that Red is King Crimson's best album. It is also
undoubtedly one of the darkest albums ever made.
Even a King Crimson hater would agree that Red is their best album. Case in
point: Robert Christgau. Christgau, one of music's most renowned critics,
hated King Crimson. He gave their first album, "In The Court Of The Crimson
King", a D+. The following is his brief, but scathing review:
"The plus is because Peter Townshend likes it. This can also be said of The
Crazy World of Arthur Brown. Beware the forthcoming hype--this is ersatz
shit."
Every other Crimson album that has been released, has never even gotten
close to an A. On average, he would give a Crimson album a C or a B. Red
however, is an exception. It got an A-. The following is his review:
"Grand, powerful, grating, and surprisingly lyrical, with words that cast
aspersions on NYC (violence you know) and make me like it, or at least not
hate it (virtually a first for the Crims), this does for classical-rock
fusion what John McLaughlin's Devotion did for jazz-rock fusion. The secret
as usual is that Robert Fripp is playing more--he does remind me of
McLaughlin, too, though he prefers to glide where McLaughlin beats his
wings. In compensation, Bill Bruford supplies more action than Buddy Miles.
Less soul, though--which is why the jazz-rock fusion is more exciting."
Famous music artists would agree too. Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, who was
largely responsible for popularizing Grunge music in the 90's, called Red
"the greatest album of all time". It was from listening to this album, that
Cobain wanted to be a musician. Who knows that without Red, Grunge might not
have existed!
Even "lesser" bands cite Red as Crimson's best album. Maynard James Keenan
of Tool, Steve Vai and Roine Stolt of The Flower Kings have laid great
praise upon Red.
In Red's case, Individual opinions no longer matter. Both critics and fellow
landmark musicians agree that Red is King Crimson's better albums.
A true masterpiece.
Best song: 21st Century Schizoid Man
It's ... it's a live album released after Red (and reissued in 2002). It's hard to know what exactly to say other than that, because it's a good live album, but that's more of a function of the tracklisting th
The Cheerful Insanity Of Giles, Giles And Fripp (Giles, Giles and Fripp) - 1968 Deram
8 (11)
In The Court Of The Crimson King - 1969 EG
9 (13)
Epitaph - 1997 DGM
8 (11)
In The Wake Of Poseidon - 1970 EG
9 (12)
Lizard - 1970 EG
3 (6)
After listening to 'Lizard' and 'Islands' back to back (if anyone can),
you get the feeling of a somewhat Beatles influence kind of gone wrong.
But both albums are very creative because I have never really heard
anything like these albums ever again and that might be a good thing who
knows. Still, not bad albums but I wouldn't recommend them.
Islands - 1971 EG
6 (9)
The band returned for an encore, they started to play a very sleazy
typically American Hoochie Coochie Man- type vamp. On top of this Boz sang
a couple of verses of In The Court, and after that it all veered off into a
free jazz jam! This is one of the funniest musical jokes I've ever heard.
This gig was released through the on-line collectors' club of King Crimson.
Ladies Of The Road - 2002 DGM
8 (11)
Larks' Tongues In Aspic - 1973 EG
9 (13)
The Night Watch - 1997 DGM
7 (10)
Starless And Bible Black - 1974 EG
6 (9)
Red - 1974 EG
9 (13)
Reasons:
USA - 1975 EG
8 (11)