DISCIPLINE

If you like Talking Heads' late 70's stuff, then you will like this album. If you like this album, then you will like Talking Heads' late 70's stuff. As some of you know, Robert Fripp guested on the opener of the Heads' third album "Fear of Music" (1979), called 'I Zimbra'. He took that guitar tone with him and a year later co-founded a band with Tony Levin, Bill Bruford, and Adrian Belew. Fripp decided to make it yet another King Crimson line-up, even though they do sound a lot like Talking Heads, especially since Belew sings like David Byrne. However, the Crims' prime focus here does not seem to be lyricism; this line-up sticks with playing a lot of instrumental stuff, as the former incarnations used to. If you do agree that prog rock is mostly about the quality of music, get "Discipline" some time in the future if you haven't heard it yet.

It may seem to you that I talk about this deal as some kind of a three- or four- star material. Well, I have some breaking news for you: the classical-jazz fusion fun is over. Along comes a very different kind of fun, that in a New Wave style. This is certainly not the Crimson of the early 70's that you used to know. Fripp still puts his lightning-speed minimalism to good use, Bruford with Levin keep up the good work, but it is Adrian Belew who makes most of the songs come alive with his weird, frantic guitar, placing his focus on timbre more than anything else, and his off-the-wall vocal. The rich and smooth textures on a couple of tracks along with heavy experimentalism on other tracks prove that this album is very well produced and is nothing short of a record capable of delivering ample positive pleasures.

All in all, I will give this album 4.5 stars because there are mostly good songs, even though they don't blow me away. Since I have to choose between four and five stars, four makes more sense as an arithmetic average.

1. 'Elephant Talk' - ****

2. 'Frame by Frame' - ****

3. 'Matte Kudasai' - ***

4. 'Indiscipline' - ***

5. 'Thela Hun Ginjeet' - *****

6. 'The Sheltering Sky' - *****

7. 'Discipline' - *****

Stamp: "I like it."