THRAK

After an extremely long break again (more than ten years), Crimson is back with almost the same line-up than during its previous three studio releases. But here, the masters will also play some mellotron and this will give a different picture to the whole. These three albums were not the best ones of the band. they almost sounded the same all the way through. Repetitive and dull. There is maybe a little hope that this situation will change with some mellotron like in the good old time.

The opening track "Vroom" really sounds as a Crimson song. Hypnotic riff, noisy at times, I must say that I quite like it. Maybe because this sound was almost ignored during such a long time ? "Coda-Marine 475" is almost the continuation of the first song. "Dinosaur" also brings me back to some earlier days. Period during which some of their compositions were half experimental and noisy and half symphonic and beautiful. This is exactly what we'll get here.

"Walking On Air" is a mellow ballad. Very quiet like Crimson could have produced ages ago. Remember the "Islands" mood ? This is another charming piece of music. Tranquil and peaceful all the way through. With "B'boom", we'll get back to some experimentation. Lots of percussions (hence the title maybe) but not as powerful as it could be. After all, Bruford had used us to greater drumming.

The title track is a more traditional KC song. Scary and dark. Complex and difficult to approach. Not my fave I must say. Like in their second album "In The Wake...", we'll get some very short song (four here). The first one is "Inner Garden I", another peaceful song with nice vocals. It seems that Belew has now decided to sound more like Lake or Wetton, which is fine with me. "Inner Garden II" is just the continuation of "I" and I am not sure it was relevant to interrupt these two.

Both "Radio I" and "Radio II" are useless interludes.

We had escaped so far to the funky mood of their last three albums, but we'll get back there with "People". But this one does not sound as dull. The structure is more complex and is more appealing to me.

"One Time" is another peaceful and symphonic tune. Another nice moment, really. We'll explore some of the basic human activities with "Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream". One of the poorest track so far. "Vroom Vroom" is the continuation of "Vroom" : almost heavy. A traditional KC song in fact. The "Vroom" suite ends up with "Vrooom Vrooom - Coda" which also closes the album. The tempo is VERY heavy.

All in all, it is a good effort. Here and there some useless numbers ("Radio I & II", "Sex, Sleep etc.") but IMO it is the best Crimson effort since "Red". This album is probably their most symphonic one since "In The Wake Of The Poseidon" back to ... 1970. This is of course far to annoy me since it is the side of King Crimson I prefer. It is just strange that they returned to this style of music with this line-up.

Three stars.