STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK

Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk once said: "Sometimes I can taste the sounds. There are a lot more feelings than just the feeling going through the ears. The whole body can feel the sounds" (1975). I would say the same thing about myself, especially when it comes down to listening to "Starless and Bible Black." Hats off to the prog-rockers that made prog-rock taste like condensed milk. Yummy.

The record is detested by many to have an awful job done at mixing the tracks. Others may detest it for atonality. Also, some may loathe it for the snooze-fest induced through tension build-up during the improvisations. How many entries have I listed? Three? And you know what? They are nothing. Let's not sue the group or the producer, or the sound engineer for the mixing job, OK? It was '73-'74, and the idea of dubbing the audience out of the picture was something that was not frequently practiced. I bet if you try to pull that off today, you still would not be satisfied with the results. (That is unless you have a spare supply of microphones for every Tom, Dick, and Harry on stage. OK, so maybe they did not think ahead of time. Big deal!)

Now, about "The Great Deceiver" - the music is too good! A guy at one of my jobs once called the intro to the opener as "fast country." Think he is right? Maybe. But the most driving ingredient here is Bob Fripp's guitar. He still knew how to rock, and so did the rest of the band. They could still write some resonant, other times compelling material. Such is the story for the rest of the album.

I forgot to mention the performance quality of certain jams, like "We'll Let You Know." I think that one is not that bad. I believe what the Crims were trying to do was to imitate the approach that Miles Davis had developed and utilized when he was working with his 1969-1970 crew: a bit of poking, feeling your way around musically. If King Crimson would not be allowed different ways of building up intensity, than why did Miles allow himself that?

I guess what I'm trying to saying in this review is that the user would benefit more from this album if he/she went a little easier on the record, on the band, on the producer, and the sound engineer, and tried to enjoy the good sides of the album and adapt to its minuscule flaws. Again, time will tell. When? I don't know.

As for the advantages, the jam tracks are tight, and most of them are just blazing! Big thanks to Mr. Fripp. My biggest favorite of those is 'Fracture', one of the best (maybe even the best) "prog-metal" performances ever. And the soft tracks in the middle, gee, I really don't want to get on your nerves about my ideas of perfect music-writing. 'Night Watch' and 'Trio' are intelligently built and they are just too good. 'Night Watch' benefits from the same things that define the quality of Pink Floyd's "Obscured by Clouds", namely melody and sound. John Wetton's voice is really sweet, and the way he sings that "Wo-o-owo-o-owo-o-..." - God, I just can't pin it down. Robert Fripp's solo in the same spot is just beyond those popular top-of-the-line rock solos. Bra--vo! As for 'Trio', I will say just this: I would sound like someone who escaped from a mental hospital if I already started writing my impression of the track. The only normal thing I have to say is that Bill Bruford was deservedly co-credited for this track.