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King Crimson - Larks' Tongues in Aspic CD (album) cover

LARKS' TONGUES IN ASPIC

King Crimson

 

Eclectic Prog

4.42 | 3247 ratings

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SouthSideoftheSky
Special Collaborator
Symphonic Team
2 stars I don't understand why so many people think this is a masterpiece album. In my opinion, there is only one song on this album that is really good all the way through, and that is Book of Saturday; a nice little song, but nothing remarkable (like the excellent Starless from the next album, for example). "Exiles" is also a pretty good track, with some nice parts. "Easy Money" starts out good, but soon drifts away into improvisational territory. (John Wetton have performed this song live recently, with his solo band, as can be seen on his great live DVD Amorata. In my opinion the Amorata live version of "Easy Money" is much better, than on this original album. BTW, Book of Saturday is also performed on Amorata).

So far so good, nothing bad, but nothing remarkable either. "Talking Drum", however, is a completely pointless, very repetitive, meandering instrumental (reminds me a bit of Hawkwind). And then there is the title track. Divided up in two parts, "Larks' Tongues in Aspic" takes up about 20 minutes of this album. The first part has too much of a jam character to it to be considered good in my opinion. It lacks focus. And it really isn't enough with one good riff to fill over 14 minutes of music! The second part is much better than the first, but it is still based on one riff only, and some improvisational variation on that one riff. Not enough to make a masterpiece in my opinion, yet alone an album that is good all the way through.

There are some good parts here for sure, but they are too few and too far in between to make this a good album overall. The people involved in this album, Bill Bruford, John Wetton and Robert Fripp himself are all people I respect. But I think they have all done much better work on other albums. Bruford with Yes and UK; Wetton with Uriah Heep, Wishbone Ash, UK and Asia; Fripp with the excellent In the Court of the Crimson King album. In the Court of the Crimson King was a groundbreaking masterpiece, Larks' Tongues in Aspic is not!

SouthSideoftheSky | 2/5 |

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