IN THE WAKE OF POSEIDON

It's difficult to even imagine a worthy followup of any sort to King Crimson's magnificent debut album but the band did give it a fair shot with satisfactory results. Although In The Wake Of Poseidon might not be as spectacular, it did show that King Crimson were far from a one time occurrence and the lightning almost struck twice here!

By the time of the recording session for the band's second album, most of the members have already departed from the lineup. This even included Greg Lake, who only returned in exchange for King Crimson's PA equipment that was later used by ELP. So it can be noted that In The Wake Of Poseidon was far from a team effort, showing us some of Robert Fripp's early moments of complete dominance over the band's material. Luckily his dominance never made itself known in the instrumental arrangements which is one of the main reasons why I consider him to be the best instrumentalist of all time. Not only is he a great guitar player, but he also manages to show self-restrain in a business where this quality is rare.

I was really surprised the first time I heard the criticism of structural resemblance between In The Court Of The Crimson King and its followup since it didn't occur to me up until that point. Honestly though, I find this comparison to be unjust outside of the fact that The Devil's Triangle pointlessly samples the title track from the debut album. The music here is much more thematic and the Peace-themes make much more sense than what the band would later do on The Power To Believe! As for the song material itself, it's not as good as the debut album but seeing that the band was really trying to push things forwards is enough for me to give this release my seal of approval. The title track is easily one of my top five King Crimson compositions featuring a hauntingly beautiful Mellotron arrangement and excellent lyrics by Peter Sinfield. The Devil's Triangle is probably on the polar opposite side of the scale, marking the least interesting moment of the album that could have been cut right around the ending of Hand Of Sceiron.

I can't deny that I'm a huge fan of King Crimson and my reviews will sometimes be unintentionally biased upwards, but this is not such an occurrence. I honestly enjoy this record and hope that more people might see beyond the tiresome criticism since the music is definitely worth it!

***** star songs: Pictures Of A City (8:03) In The Wake of Poseidon (7:56)

**** star songs: Peace - A Beginning (0:49) Cadence And Cascade (4:27) Peace - A Theme (1:15) Cat Food (4:54) Peace - An End (1:53)

*** star songs: The Devil's Triangle (11:35)