DISCIPLINE

The King Crimson fanbase seems to be divided over this release. Typical criticisms of DISCIPLINE seem to be the overt ''new-wave'' sound the album embraces and the seemingly cold technicality of the songs. Not one song breaks the nine minute threshold, Adrian Belew's voice is of an acquired taste and only prototypical rock instruments are used here (minus the Chapman stick). In spite of all this, I am still willing to defend DISCIPLINE.

I've had a mutual respect for the Crimson body of work ever since I heard ''21st Century Schizoid Man'' for the first time. However, I believe mutual respect and love are not necessarily synonyms, and I've always had trouble putting King Crimson albums on repeat because I really didn't love the songs, even if their debut is a bona fide prog masterpiece. They've always been artistic masterminds, but many of their earlier works aren't ''grounded'' enough for me. DISCIPLINE changed that.

DISCIPLINE is deceptively simply in its new-wavey sound, yet all of the stick lines, percussion tricks and guitar licks give the album an inner complexity. Fripp can give a cluster of notes a trancy feel, and his guitar work is the main fabric that keeps the album in check along with Bruford's odd percussion sounds. Adrian Belew can create some interesting noises (e.g. elephant sounds in ''Elephant Talk'') with his guitar, and the stick lines are things you simply must hear in order to understand.

There are plenty of highlight tracks here, mostly in the trancier tunes like ''Elephant Talk'', ''Discipline'', ''Thela Hun Ginjeet'' and ''Frame By Frame'', all of them sounding like the Police or the Talking Heads. ''Indiscipline'' has a sound very close to heavy metal with an incredible drum performance to boot, and ''The Sheltering Sky'' has this Peter-Gabriel-world- music sound to it. The only weaker track is ''Matte Kudasai'', a ballad type of track that doesn't really fit. I'd love to give this the maximum rating, but I'll be objective here and warn progsters of the potentially ''poppier'' sound here. One should first discover 70's King Crimson first.