LIZARD

A new Crimson, a new style

"Lizard" was released in December 1970, seven months after "In the wake of Poseidon" and with a brand new line-up; Michael Giles left the band to join Ian McDonald in a new group called McDonald & Giles while Greg Lake did the same to join Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Gordon Haskell on bass and vocals, Mel Collins on sax and flute, Andy McCullough on drums, Keith Tippett on piano and of Course Robert Fripp on guitar and mellotron and Peter Sinfield in charge of the lyrics were the line-up that played on this album which was absolutely different from the first two recordings of the band.

The album consists of 5 songs: 4 on the A-side and a 23 minutes epic suite that fills the entire B-side and gives the name to the album. The essence of the album is in an even jazzier vein than the first two albums and with a less obscure ambient.

1.- Cirkus (06:28): The opening song is one of my favorite ones; it has great wind instrument arrangements played along with Fripp's acoustic guitar and Tippett's electric piano; almost seven minutes of a nice structured jazz-influenced track.

2.- Indoor games (05:41): More in the mood of an electric rock happy ballad with the nice touch of Mel Collins' sax line.

3.- Happy family (04:16): Probably the song I like the less in the album; "In the wake of Poseidon" contains "Cat food", a song in which Keith Tippett played an out of time piano arrangement as the background of the song, I think he was trying to do something similar in here but the result wasn't that good: he played an out of time electric piano that wasn't in the background but rather taking almost all the sound of the song and that makes it hard to enjoy (for me), but it's still a nice piece.

4.- Lady of the dancing water (02:44): An acoustic softly rock ballad with the lovely touch of Mel Collins' flute.

5.- Lizard (23:14): Divided into four different parts, the main title of the album closes it amazingly. It goes from a nice sung entrance with the remarkable collaboration of Yes' singer Jon Anderson through some dark jazzy moments and it is filled with wind instruments parts until the great closure with Fripp's guitar solo.

Lizard is probably not an absolutely essential masterpiece of Progressive Rock and Jazz but it is one of those transition albums that are indispensable in any collection.

SONG RATING: Cirkus, 5 Indoor games, 4 Happy family, 3 Lady of the dancing water, 5 Lizard, 5

AVERAGE: 4.4

PERCENTAGE: 88

ALBUM RATING: 4 stars

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