Red
King Crimson
| Track |
Score |
| Red |
2 |
6 |
| Fallen Angel |
2 |
6 |
| One More Red Nightmare |
4 |
7 |
| Providence |
1 |
8 |
| Starless |
9 |
13 |
| Total: |
18 |
40 |
| 45% |
In some ways the final offering from the seventies incarnation of King Crimson matches their original classic five years earlier. They both contain five songs, which roughly equal each other in length, and have parallels in content. However , Robert Fripp had grown as a composer over those five years, and Greg Lake, Michael Giles and Ian McDonald had been replaced by John Wetton, Bill Bruford and Mel Collins respectively. Since it isn't fair to compare albums this way, here's an indepth look at Red.
Red (the album and the song) begin with what could be the heaviest twenty seconds in rock history. After this the classic guitar riff begins. And keeps going. Midway through, a bass guitar solo plays, although this is hardly spectacular. The song does portray the colour red to some degree, although unless you're a very desperate metalhead, the song won't excite you too much in general.
Fallen Angel on the other hand is slow and thoughtful. Too much so. It's a real pain droning through 6 minutes of this song. In its defence the saxaphone solo is rather interesting, but not really enough to save the rest of the song.
Moving onto the third song, One More Red Nightmare, we are greeted by bass and drums duel. As the song progresses, it turns into a rather deep fusion song, although it suffers the same flaws as the previous two songs in that it draws itself out too long.
The fourth song, and first on the second side is a live improvisation titled Providence. The first sounds are a wayward little violin sequence. After this it just gets worse. Soon some bass comes in, but hardly anything interesting. In fact it just keeps building up, although to no effect at all really.
The album is concluded with Starless (another rejected track from their previous album), which starts with some synthesiser chords, and soon adding in bass and drums, and later a smooth electric guitar solo. As the vocals come in, so does a clarinet solo. The song on the whole is rather slow (especially compared to the previous tracks), and has some nice fusion elements to go with it. The extended instrumental section in the middle is quite remarkable too, also containing several more solos.
King Crimson have probably had two disasters for each of their masterpieces. David Cross had left the band halfway through recording, and not long afterwards Robert Fripp called the whole thing quits. These personnel problems are reflected in the music. While the album definately has its moments, it certainly has its flaws, and while it may interest fans of metal/psychedelic/progressive/fusion/avante-garde there isn't much outside of this.
More reviews