IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING

A 2-star review for this seminal prog album?! I will duck and wait for the s**t to hit the fan. 2 stars is what I honestly feel about this album though. It has 5 songs and only 2 are any good. It starts off with the great 21st Century Schizoid Man which is a heavy rocking track with some great jamming. A good start but the momentum is not maintained. We then head off into 2 ballads. I hate ballads and Greg Lake's vocals are particularly annoying. Then we get Moonchild. It starts off as another another disappointing ballad and then ... it gets worse! It heads off into nonsense. The album redeems itself slightly with the final title track but it's not that great. It's very repetitive. Obviously the album was something special at the time it was released but I think now we have so many more prog albums that are better.