King Crimson - Red

Red (1974) ****1/2

If you were a fan of the awesomoid heavosity of "21st Century Schizoid Man" but couldn't stand those sissy hippie ballads that filled up the rest of In the Court, then this is the KFC (King Fucking Crimson) platter for you.  After several albums floundering in the early '70s with incontinent lineup changes and subpar material (yes, I've heard Lizards in Poisedon's Starless Aspic Islands and may eventually force myself to listen to several LPs' worth of atonal jams in search of nonexistent songwriting again, for reviewing purposes - certainly not for pleasure!), the King slim down the members and metamorphize into into a heavy kickass power trio in a Cream vein of virtuosos who can play and don't let you forget it.  The basic idea can be roughly summarized as inventing the genre of heavy jazz metal, a commercially suicidal proposition even among the most open-minded pop audience, but that drives working musicians to slobbering fanboy-ism.  Not only is this shit heavy as osmium (or contempo Black Sabs) but it's full of untrivial chord changes and clockwork smooth tempo shifts and tight ensemble playing, as well as seering, technically accomplished solos.  I'm not a musician so I can't go into the technical details, all I can tell you is what my ears hear, and that is three top-notch musicians seemingly working at full capacity:  Bill Brufford, splashy rumbling tricky time signature drums; John Wetton, rubbery thick distorted bass grumblings and dead-ringer for Greg Lake clear art-rock vocals; and main man Robert Fripp swooping and slicing with shards of sharply atonal guitar, not quite fragmented enough to count as proto-post-punk but getting there.  Unlike the debut, which will forever carry the whiff of its patchouli age, this still sounds in 2010 very modern, not the least because so many math-rock and avante-metal bands can trace their roots to this basic template.  As far as dark, evil, heavy jam-rock goes, this goes head to head with the Stooges' Funhouse as my cerebral headbanger of choice - the comparison isn't often made (OK, I think I'm the only one) but both albums are equal parts atonal free jazz squall and heavy hard rock pounding, under the thumb of a very well-rehearsed and tight as an oil-drum band, with the Stooges obviously more on the headbanging side of things and King Crimson clearly aiming more for the cerebellum.  But both albums aim to hit both the body and mind, and succeed at doing so.

As with the debut, there are 5 lengthy songs.  The opening title track is an ear-puncturing instrumental with guitar (scraping) and bass (popping) against each other, drums down the middle, creepy mellotron on the break.  Dark, creepy, abrasive, eerie - that's the mood of the album; just look at the cover, it sets the intended mood just fine.  "Fallen Angel" eases off into a bit of light relief with some pretty mid-tempo balladeering before erupting into the title chorus and dragging the final minutes out on a sax-honking atonal jazz jam.  "One More Red Nightmare" is the mostly heavily rhythmic track, an agressive rocker that's all slappy-happy drum licks and ominous bass rumblings, with more jazzy soloing near the end.  "Providence" is the sole bummer, eight minutes of scratchy violin scraping while the band makes random jamming noises.  It's inexcusably awful and deprives this LP from scoring the highest possible grade.  But, saving the best for last is the twelve minute "Starless" which successfully marries the Crimson ballad and rock jam modes, and is probably the definitive King Crimson track for that reason.  Note that definitive doesn't necessarily mean best, though it may very well be - it satisfies both the requirements of flowing melodicism and instrumental show-off wankery.  Which is all you can ask of the Crimson Kings.  What more do you want?  Emotion?  Fah, tis for weakling souls.

King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King

In the Court of the Crimson King (1969)  ****

According to legends of yore, prog rock has its genesis in this vale of somber melancholy.  Like its proto-metal counterpart Led Zeppelin also released the same year, it closes curtains on the '60s and ushers in the '70s with music that is colder, less soulful, more pompous, puffed-up, and doom-laden, not to mention frillier shirts and lyrics about Middle Earth.  The title track that closes the album may be the only song that directly touches upon dancing court jesters and wise wizards sharing jokes, but the rest of the album sustains that dark, courtly medieval feel, with sombre ballads that owe as much to Gregorian chant as R&B.  Many of the critics of the day recoiled from such sacrilege, this mixing of light chamber music with a rock beat, but it was a genuinely new wrinkle in rock's crinkle.  To modern ears, the ballads sound melodically gorgeous if pompously inflated, though in truth the symphonic strings are tastefully balanced in the mix, unlike most other late '60s garish overproductions of the type.  The lyrics to "I Talk to the Wind" and "Epitaph" may be meaningful-sounding but ultimately meaningless 'rock poetry' but are tasteful enough to not be offensive, and Greg Lake's plangent pipes deliver them with all due power and conviction.  Notice that I didn't say 'soul' or 'emotion'; even in troubador style ballad mode, King Crimson's music reigns on a plane of cold, cerebral abstraction.  "Moonchild" is the only track that doesn't deliver; the balladic vocal section is fair enough, if nothing spectacular, but then it descends into nearly ten minutes of tuneless keyboard experimentation, making it the longest and by far the worst track on the album.

The one track that deviates from the Moody Blues style ballad formula is the most famed, the shrieking, pounding heavy metal assault of "21st Century Man", a ferocious anti-war screed made creepier and more mechanically inhuman sounding by filtering Lake's vocals through a distorted vocoder that makes him sound like a harshly barking killer robot.  Note that I didn't add the qualifer "proto" to the metal; this is as harsh and heavy and metallic as it gets, with a crushingly inhuman power that Black Sabbath would sell their souls for.  (Oh, you say Ozzy covered it?  Would that he would've in 1971 instead of the actual 21st century.)  It sounds nothing remotely like the rest of the album, which consists of melodic balladry too frosty to be called easy-going.