IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING

This album is a very important one for progressive rock, it was one of the first prog rock albums ever and it was extremely influential on other prog groups. All the five songs here are prog classics, especially the opening and closing tracks.

Why is this not a masterpiece of progressive music then? Well, in terms of being a groundbreaking album with a huge influence on others it is. However, the tedious experimental part of Moonchild stops me from giving this five stars. I simply cannot believe that they chose to include this boring improvisation on this album. This shows very bad judgement. But what a relief it is when the title track kicks in.

I should add that this album is the best album by King Crimson by an extremely wide margin. They never again made anything even close to the standards set by this one.

In The Court Of The Crimson King is a classic but not quite a masterpiece.