Starless and Bible Black: King Crimson

One of my favs from KC that's more accessible when I'm not in the mood for the complexity of LTIA (as great as it is) and is a perfect set up for Red. What's your take on SaBB?

Its perfect to my ears. I prefer it to LTIA it seems (as I too spin it more often) + its got Fracture. 

A lesser album from their 70's output. Does not really click with me anyway. If I should rate it, I may round it up to 3 stars when I'm in a good mood.

I've always had trouble getting into it.  Always vastly preferred LTiA.

I enjoy it almost as much as lark's tongues and more than Red

4/5 stars for me.

I find the improvs to be hit and miss, but I can't condemn King Crimson for going that route if they can get some good stuff out of it. It's amazing that they formed "Trio" out of thin air like that. In fact, I think I'll try to find the Great Deceiver sets to see if they had any other neat improvs.

There's also some little stuff I like. I like the call and response between Cross' violin and Fripp's guitar in the first half of "Lament" and Bruford's destructo-march in the second half, the proto-80's-era sound of "The Great Deceiver" and the sheer beauty of "The Night Watch". "Fracture" is probably the one I have the most fond memories of, reminding me of the Pomeranian that my family used to own barking her little head off to Bruford's chime section. Don't get me wrong, "Fracture" itself holds up very well on its hold and is a tour-de-force of Fripp's guitar work, plus the rest of the band does a fantastic job complementing the piece.

Edited by jayem - August 07 2018 at 14:24

You can't go wrong with this era of Crimson!

Michael678 wrote: im actually trying to get into this album alot on Youtube, though right now it's mainly The Great Deceiver, Lament*, The Night Watch, and Fracture* that are getting me for now ("*" represents my faves at the moment). the main reason for this is that alot of the studio material is getting brought down by Youtube, which sucks. the only way to listen is to actually buy them, mainly through online (which my parents are not big fans of which makes sense). awwwww, man......  if you can't already tell, i've now become a KC fan for a few months now, but only for their 70's stuff (FOR NOW!!!! IM GOING BY ERA EVEN THOUGH I KNOW OTHER TRACKS FROM THEIR LATER PERIODS!!!!!!!)

Straless & Bible Black is certainly not the finest KC album but on its own merits, it remains the one I am most fond of. I remember the day I got it (it was my bday and my lovely French girlfriend at the time put it in my hands ) and the same impression I had then in 1974 is still effervescing today.