king crimson ( in the wake of the poseidon)

Starts off promisingly, as Pictures Of A City could definitely hold its own against its companion piece on ITCOTCK but I can not say the same of the other songs on side 1. Side 2 more than makes up for it though: "Cat Food" and especially "The Devil's Triangle" are daring tours-de-force that helped push the band's boundaries in its early days and proved that they wouldn't be content with just banking on past successes and remaining in one established niche (both tracks are also standout moments for the recently deceased Keith Tippett). "Groon" is great too; shame that it didn't make the original cut. Not a perfect album but I still like it a lot, a solid 4 out of 5 from me.

This album still puts me to sleep!

I like it but prefer side 1.  I would rather listen to "Cadence.." and the title track over their counterparts ("I Talk.." and "Epitaph") on the first album, not to say I think they are better.  "Pictures" is ok.  "Cat Food" is good but shows their tendency to novelty songs that would continue for a couple of albums.  They don't wear well for me.  "Devil's Triangle" is interesting but could have been much better.  I think Fripp cobbled together ideas that McDonald had left behind.  He wasn't quite ready to put out a new album.  Still, genius is genius, it juist doesn't always make for a personal favourite

Once again ...all KC is good...some is just better than others.

I like the title track a lot. I think it's a great example of early symphonic rock/prog. The whole album is good and no noodling like 85 percent of moonchild. The devil's triangle is something that I didn't really get at first until I read somewhere that it is supposed to be a deconstruction of sounds. If you think of it as music falling apart it works. I like how the song "court" is embedded at the end. They must have got that idea from Simon and Garfunkel who did the same thing in one of their songs. 

Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - September 09 2020 at 16:34

Blacksword wrote: Love this album. I generally listen to it more often than the debut.

How can anyone not like an album with a song called "cat food" on it? 

Easily their worst album imo. After Cadence and Cascade it just falls off a cliff, side two is just unlistenable to me.

^ I actually have kind of come around to Beat, I think its a pretty decent album even if it doesn't reach great peaks. TCOL can be a headache, but there's some really solid tracks in the mix &  I can appreciate what they were going for and how it stands as a very unique album. I think Wake goes against what the band has come to stand for and that is always progressing and pushing themselves to sound different album to album (which is something I think any good prog artist does). For the time it was released it was still bold, but to me it feels kinda incomplete and I attribute that to pretty much every member besides Fripp having one foot out the door.

Edited by dougmcauliffe - September 12 2020 at 05:09

the mellotron section in the middle of the title track is such a beautiful simple melody,. with really sweet acoustic guitar, but once it's done I admit I lose some interest in the song.