KC: In The Wake Of Poseidon

Fripp himself has said that once the band that played on the first album broke up, he knew that the follow up could only be second-best or the wrong means to an end. Poseidon has some great music. Pictures of a City, Cadence and Cascade, the title track, are all great (and Cat Food and Groon!). However, the best versions of each of these songs is actually found on the live recordings that were released as part of the Epitaph box sets. For me the worst is Devil's Triangle. Crimson was playing a live version of Mars (from Holst 'The Planets') in their gigs, and it was great. He changed it slightly for the Poseidon album, adding these awful silence-breaks in between the sections, so that it he could re-name it (assumedly so as not to infringe copyright or something). It is so much weaker than the live Mars versions. So, great songs, but these are second-best versions of tunes played best by the former version of Crimson.

kenethlevine wrote: Dellinger wrote: Mascodagama wrote: Good album, but not among my favourites of theirs, and notable in the 1969-1974 output for not showing very much creative development from the previous album. Perhaps it's harsh to consider that a criticism when so many bands just remake the same album for their entire career, but Fripp & co. would go on to set themselves a high bar in that regard. The oh-so-cheesy use of Holst's Mars was a horrible error of taste, I've always thought. I actually like their use of Mars on their early live shows, with the original line-up... though I do prefer it over it's use on this album. On the other hand, I believe their fame of not repeating themselves and always being creative is a bit exagerated... I mean, it's true, up to a point, but on the other hand, once making Schizoid Man, and later the Larks tongues in Aspic songs (specially part 2), they did repeat that formula, or that set of mind, on almost every album at least for a few songs. Unfortunatley, they did drop the attempt at writing songs like Epitaph, Court, and Poseidon, or even Starless, and even sooner they dropped trying to make songs like I talk to the Wind and Cadence and Cascade. I read somewhere that "Fallen Angel" was the last KC song to feature acoustic guitar.  Fripp's unique acoustic style was one of the reasons I fell in love with a bunch of early KC songs.   That gone, along with a focus on harder edged stuff, made me less and less of a fan as time went by.

kenethlevine wrote: ^ Yeah agreed about those songs.  I know they couldn't keep doing Epitaph and the Court over and over, and they were evolving, but, I mean, "Cirkus" was to me, an example of a direction they could have taken and didn't.  That is a full fledged masterpiece and the stuff he does on his acoustic guitar blew my young mind without drugs

I think ITWOP is marginally better than the debut. That is to say, simply enjoy it a little more.

^ I don't mind it being similar to the debut, it's just that the only song I really enjoy in this one is the title track, the rest just don't do much for me. Either if I compare them with their counterparts from the debut or just listen to the album without thinking of the previous one.