LIZARD

Well, I've been going through King Crimson's discography in chronological order, and there has been something of a decline in the quality of their albums since In the Court... Maybe this is the least accessible album of theirs, but either way its disapointing. It has its moments, and I guess its important to see how Crimson developed as a band, but the vocals aren't great and their is a serious lack of 'hair- raisingly good' moments that were abundant on the first album (and a little bit on the second one too). This album is also jazzy to the extreme in parts. But anyway.

The first track, Cirkus, starts the album off fairly well with a good melody, and some alright vocals. Then comes in this scary sounding riff that works really well. There is also a good mellotron section underneath a... jazzy sax solo? Who would have thought that two opposites such as that could sound as good as they do together? So anyway, a good song. 8.5/10

Now the next two songs sort of go together because they flow into each other. They are also the source of most of the album's faults. Indoor games has some horribly bad, jazzy musical interludes, but the vocal sections are OK, and the bridge is very dreamy and cool sounding. An Ok song with OK vocal parts, but crappy instrumental parts. 6.5/10

Track 3, Happy Family, is a weird song, and the melody is not catchy, nor will it grow on you very well. However, whereas it was the vocal parts that salvaged the previous track, it is the instrumental sections which save this song. Not overly jazzy, and kind of rocking. Still, a mediocre song. 5/10.

Now, having said that vocal parts in Indoor Games are good, but the instrumental parts are bad, and that the vocal parts in Happy Family are bad but the instrumental sections are good, I thought the logical solution would be to combine the vocal parts of Indoor Games with the instrumental parts of Happy Family, which I think would have actually worked quite well, because when you think about it they would sound good together.

The next track, Lady of the Dancing Water, is a very mellow ballad, with some good melodies and flute work, pleasant but not a standout track by any means. 7/10

Now, Lizard. The twenty minute epic of the album, which happens to feature the great vocals of Yes-man Jon Anderson. Well, this song is OK, and it will grow on you to and extent. It opens with very melodic vocals from Anderson, with some great dreamy, semi-ominous keyboards from Fripp. AFter that, the peacocks tale begins and the song takes a slight turn for the worse, with some long drawn out jazzy sax improvisation. However, after this the battle of glass tears comes in, with Haskell singing the best melody of the album. The rest of this section rocks fairly hard, and features a good spacy guitar solo from Fripp. The last section is alright, not very memorable. The only problem with this song is the lack of vocals in parts which could use them, and the lack of a cohesive structure. Sure it has subtitles, but they dont flow very well. So a pretty good song, which will grow on you over time. 8.5/10

So this album is alright, nothing very special. Standouts are Cirkus and Lizard. The problems with this album are the vocals, the lack of very strong melodies, and the over- jazziness. However, keep in mind that a little jazziness goes a long way with me, if you love jazzy stuff, you will probably feel differently about this album.