Starless and Bible Black: Have At It!

Excellent album, one of the best in the KC discog. After the eclectic and creative nature of this masterpiece collection of tracks, follow up album, "Red' seemed like an album from a band that had run out of ideas and direction.

Easy Money wrote: Excellent album, one of the best in the KC discog. After the eclectic and creative nature of this masterpiece collection of tracks, follow up album, "Red' seemed like an album from a band that had run out of ideas and direction.

I think you got it backwards

Easy Money wrote: Excellent album, one of the best in the KC discog. After the eclectic and creative nature of this masterpiece collection of tracks, follow up album, "Red' seemed like an album from a band that had run out of ideas and direction.

wiz_d_kidd wrote: dougmcauliffe wrote: It’s a mid tier king crimson album, the non improv tracks are all really solid, but the improvs just mess with the flow of the album and are a mixed bag. Disagree. It's a TOP tier King Crimson album, tied for first place with Lark's Tongues and Red. I like all three for different reasons. And the improv parts are the best - especially the way "We'll Let You Know" evolves from random interplay of Fripp and Wetton into a something more structured. Improv is what defined that era of KC. And the guitar work of Fripp on "Fracture" is still one of the most complicated guitar parts ever conceived and played. That stroke of genius alone puts the album on the top of my list.

In my opinion there is Just way too much downtime in the improvs and they tend to not get interesting until the final minute or two. With red, it’s really exciting start to finish, where with starless, the actual songs are all great, but everything in between disrupts the flow.

I would have loved to see a SABB with less improv and more studio tracks cause they were writing strong material.

Great beginning and ending tunes. The rest is hit and miss for me. Overall, 3.75 stars.

SteveG wrote: The KC album I like a little bit more than LTiA. (But only on Mondays, Thursdays and Sundays.)

I like SaBB a little bit more LTIA, but only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Seriously though, I really would have expressed it pretty much the same as you did. There are times when I’ve gone for Lark’s in polls over SaBB, but I’ve never been comfortable with those votes. LTIA is far more dramatic and cinematic than SaBB. However, a weakness that LTIA has (which I brought out in my post in the LTIA thread) is SaBB's strength. SaBB conveys the feel of mass improvisation. It does it in large part by incorporating actual live material. However it does it though, it gets across the feeling of musicians probing and exploring, and I just love it for that. That improvisational aspect is actually the wider history of King Crimson, but SaBB is the only album that really taps into it.

I much prefer Red. I only really enjoy Fracture and Night Watch from SABB.

Earthbound?

L'équivalent de partir avec la petite grosse moche à la fermeture des bars.

Edited by Barbu - February 04 2020 at 09:05

I haven't actually heard this album, but I have heard just about all songs from live albums, and mostly they do nothing for me, except for Fracture, and even that one isn't among my very favourite Crimson songs. And since the Starless and Bible Black songs were greatly actually recorded from live concerts, I don't really find much of a reason to get the "studio" one.