King Crimson - "Larks' Tongue in Aspic" (1973) - Island
Hello Friends,
There is one king to rule them all and that king's name is King Crimson!
Larks' Tongue in Aspic, the fifth record by the British progressive rock band King Crimson, might be one of the heaviest and darkest prog rock albums we've heard.
We've been listening to it over and over again and with each listen it continues to almost hypnotically captivate our attention and thoroughly amaze us! (Well, one of us! Sorry Tiki T!)
This album marks the third version of the Crimson lineup. In addition to mainstay and guitarist Robert Fripp, the record features new members John Wetton (bass guitar & vocals), David Cross (violin & mellotron), Bill Bruford (drums) and Jamie Muir (percussion).
Like a great jazz combo, every member's presence is felt. There's nothing wasted and nothing extraneous. Fripp, the quiet genius, masterminds it all using his guitar to produce sounds like we've never heard before. Wetton comes off like a confident frontman, a hunkier version of Greg Lake. Cross's violin & mellotron parts are understated, almost sad and spooky-sounding, providing the perfect foil for Fripp's heavy and alien guitar sounds.
Bill Bruford, fresh off his tenure with Yes, provides some heavy, jazz-inspired polyrhythmic drumming but the real surprise is Jamie Muir as the additional percussionist! He's banging & blowing pretty much anything he can get his hands on: cymbals, drums, thumb pianos, pieces of sheet metal, whistles, etc. It all makes for some really interesting and layered soundscapes that are simultaneously abrasive, mesmirizing & exotic. Its like if Black Sabbath and Martin Denny got together and played a concert on Saturn!
The instrumental "Larks' Tongue in Aspic Parts One & Two" provides bookends to the album.
It starts out like some prog-rock Moldau with fluttering strings, bird calls and a genteel buildup then out of nowhere... HOLY SHIT...
After melting our minds with that 13+ minute epic, we're treated to the gentle 3 minute ballad, "Book of Saturday" featuring Wetton's vocals accompanied by guitar and violin (and some backward tracking!)
Side One's closer "Exiles" sounds the most like something that might be found on their incredible debut album, In the Court of the King Crimson. Like that album's "Epitaph", its another "quiet" song (by Crimson standards) featuring fluttering violins, weaving mellotrons, an acoustic guitar picked in an almost medieval style and Wetton doing his best Greg Lake impersonation. There's even a somewhat "bluesy" section in the middle of the song ("But Lord I had to go, My trail was laid too slow behind me") that actually reminds us more than a little of Genesis-era Gabriel.
Listening to "Exiles" you can sort of hear the groundwork for everything that a band like Sigur Ros would start doing over 20 years later. Who knew that King Crimson was one of the first post-rock bands?
"Easy Money" gets the party started on Side Two. Its also the closest the album would have to a radio friendly-sounding single.
The ominous, nightmare-inducing instrumental "The Talking Drum" is the record's weirdest and most avant-garde track. More soundscape than song, its like soundtrack music from a Science Fiction epic that will be made at some point in the future (when movies aren't projected onto a screen, but instead are injected directly into our central nervous systems so we can become fully immersed in the cinematic experience!)
"The Talking Drum" leads right into "Larks' Tongue in Aspic, part 2"-- picking up, sort of, where Part One left off. Rather than being a piece that builds in movements, Part Two is pretty much based around a repeated, driving riff that mutates in and out of itself for seven minutes. Its heavy, dark and unforgiving. It sounds a little like something Yes would have recorded if at the time they were possessed by demons.
And speaking of demons, if the devil had a playlist this record would probably be on it!
RATING: 4.5 you make my life and times a book of (Prog Rock) Saturdays out of 5
There is one king to rule them all and that king's name is King Crimson!
Larks' Tongue in Aspic, the fifth record by the British progressive rock band King Crimson, might be one of the heaviest and darkest prog rock albums we've heard.
We've been listening to it over and over again and with each listen it continues to almost hypnotically captivate our attention and thoroughly amaze us! (Well, one of us! Sorry Tiki T!)
This album marks the third version of the Crimson lineup. In addition to mainstay and guitarist Robert Fripp, the record features new members John Wetton (bass guitar & vocals), David Cross (violin & mellotron), Bill Bruford (drums) and Jamie Muir (percussion).
Like a great jazz combo, every member's presence is felt. There's nothing wasted and nothing extraneous. Fripp, the quiet genius, masterminds it all using his guitar to produce sounds like we've never heard before. Wetton comes off like a confident frontman, a hunkier version of Greg Lake. Cross's violin & mellotron parts are understated, almost sad and spooky-sounding, providing the perfect foil for Fripp's heavy and alien guitar sounds.
Bill Bruford, fresh off his tenure with Yes, provides some heavy, jazz-inspired polyrhythmic drumming but the real surprise is Jamie Muir as the additional percussionist! He's banging & blowing pretty much anything he can get his hands on: cymbals, drums, thumb pianos, pieces of sheet metal, whistles, etc. It all makes for some really interesting and layered soundscapes that are simultaneously abrasive, mesmirizing & exotic. Its like if Black Sabbath and Martin Denny got together and played a concert on Saturn!
The instrumental "Larks' Tongue in Aspic Parts One & Two" provides bookends to the album.
It starts out like some prog-rock Moldau with fluttering strings, bird calls and a genteel buildup then out of nowhere... HOLY SHIT...
After melting our minds with that 13+ minute epic, we're treated to the gentle 3 minute ballad, "Book of Saturday" featuring Wetton's vocals accompanied by guitar and violin (and some backward tracking!)
Side One's closer "Exiles" sounds the most like something that might be found on their incredible debut album, In the Court of the King Crimson. Like that album's "Epitaph", its another "quiet" song (by Crimson standards) featuring fluttering violins, weaving mellotrons, an acoustic guitar picked in an almost medieval style and Wetton doing his best Greg Lake impersonation. There's even a somewhat "bluesy" section in the middle of the song ("But Lord I had to go, My trail was laid too slow behind me") that actually reminds us more than a little of Genesis-era Gabriel.
Listening to "Exiles" you can sort of hear the groundwork for everything that a band like Sigur Ros would start doing over 20 years later. Who knew that King Crimson was one of the first post-rock bands?
"Easy Money" gets the party started on Side Two. Its also the closest the album would have to a radio friendly-sounding single.
The ominous, nightmare-inducing instrumental "The Talking Drum" is the record's weirdest and most avant-garde track. More soundscape than song, its like soundtrack music from a Science Fiction epic that will be made at some point in the future (when movies aren't projected onto a screen, but instead are injected directly into our central nervous systems so we can become fully immersed in the cinematic experience!)
"The Talking Drum" leads right into "Larks' Tongue in Aspic, part 2"-- picking up, sort of, where Part One left off. Rather than being a piece that builds in movements, Part Two is pretty much based around a repeated, driving riff that mutates in and out of itself for seven minutes. Its heavy, dark and unforgiving. It sounds a little like something Yes would have recorded if at the time they were possessed by demons.
And speaking of demons, if the devil had a playlist this record would probably be on it!
RATING: 4.5 you make my life and times a book of (Prog Rock) Saturdays out of 5
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