EARTHBOUND

The first live album by KING CRIMSON was a huge disappointment for many of their fans, but that does not include me. After been reading several reviews of this album I understood that for many people the quality of the album is very important and if this was a studio album I'd probably expect a high sound quality too, but we have to keep in mind that this album was recorded alive with very low-quality equipment, so what I count on this record is not so much the quality of the recording but the quality of the performance itself.

This album was both recorded and published in 1972 after the launch of "Islands" right before Boz BURRELL, Mel COLLINS and Ian WALLACE left the band, so this album that goes right between "Islands" and "Larks' tongues in aspic" is the closure of the first KING CRIMSON era (1969-1972).

The opening track is an eleven-minute version of "21st century schizoid man" in which, sadly, the frenetic middle part gets lost in the middle of the bad quality of the record, but still we can appreciate what these guys were doing and it's fair to say the performance was really good for what we can get. "Peoria" is an instrumental improvisation that lasts seven minutes, and shows what the band was able to do on stage; it's a well-executed jam with slight jazz bases.

The version of "Sailor's Tale" is almost lame (I have to recognize that), but not so much because of the sound quality but because of the fact that the track is incomplete. "Earthbound" is the fourth track (first of the B-side) and in here the sound quality gets enormously better; this is a nice almost funky instrumental improvisation.

The last song is a 15-minute version of "Groon", a song which was released as a single for the "In the wake of Poseidon" album, and such as "Earthbound" the quality in here is better than in the A-side, so we can appreciate every single note and the result is quite enjoyable: the frenetic jamming middle section of the song is absolutely fantastic.

So the recording is bad, so what? The performance was good and that is frankly more important (at least to me it is).

SONG RATING: 21st century schizoid man, 3 Peoria, 4 Sailor's tale, 3 Earthbound, 3 Groon, 4

AVERAGE: 3.4

PERCENTAGE: 68

ALBUM RATING: 3 stars

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