THE YOUNG PERSONS GUIDE TO KING CRIMSON

This nice compilation double vinyl gives a good overview of the 60's/70's KING CRIMSON material, also being wrapped in gatefold sleeves with beautiful pictures and informative texts. This album worked as a guide for me, as this actually was my first album I got from this band. The tracks are not ion chronological order in the vinyls, and there has been a successful effort to create a dramatic progression in the music.

"Epitaph" which opens the A-side of vinyl is my most favorite song from their first album. "Cadence and Cascade" is a bit similar track to "I Talk to The Wind", and maybe another of them would have been enough. The later one is doubtlessly more interesting of them here, as it is an early version with Judy Dyble singing. These tracks are pretty mellow tunes, unlike the horrible "Ladies of The Road" rant which could have been omitted. The next side contains the major tracks from their "Red" album, "Red" and "Starless", giving a powerful presentation of their mid-1970's might. The second LP starts very tenderly, first offering the Rembrandt inspired "The Night Watch", and then the pretty drumless "Book of Saturday" and Fripp's solo piece "Peace - A Theme", followed by "Cat Food" like on the original album. "Groon" follows, a neurotic instrumental single B-side, really representing the better side of the in my opinion weak production line with Boz. Coda from "Larks' Tongues in Aspic part one" is sadly presented here as only as a short excerpt of the coda, a resolution I didn't appreciate, unlike the editing of "Moonchild". Here we have only the beautiful 2 and half minutes before ten minutes of boredom. This is the best version of this song in my opinion. The classic "Trio" from Amsterdam concert 1973 leads then to the title track "In The Court of The Crimson King", which is not as good as "Epitaph" as composition in my opinion, though it has a great melody, but it's interesting as it is the last track on the album, maybe emphasizing the meaning of their first album by circling the other material here around it.

If you already have the original material by this band, this compilation is merely a curiosity, but it works as a good introduction for this band, if you're not interested of their post-70's material, and of course it's a neat vinyl collection subject with pretty artwork and few rare tracks.