In the late 1970s, the vast pool of inspiration which fueled the progressive rock movement in its heyday had run out. Punk rock was the new big thing, and the old ideals were being thrown out faster than a big brother housemate's dignity. In these chaotic times, King Crimson members John Wetton and Bill Bruford, Roxy Music member Eddie Jobson and the wondrously great Allan Holdsworth formed a rather much ignored supergroup known as U.K. Together they produced one album; this one.
As soon as the record begins, the listener is greeted with superb musicianship. A solid bass riff, an interesting synth workout, and trademark Bill Bruford drumming. The singing isn't awful, although it gets a bit tiresome as the melodies are a tad repetitive. There's some nice soloing between the verses though.
This segues into another synth workout, this time with a more spacey bent. And along with vocals, we have the second song. Those vocals are essentially the same as In the Dead of Night's but reversed. Of course, the synthing (especially the solo towards the end), combined with more Bruford drumming, still make it a worthwhile song.
This in turn segues into the third song of this little trilogy, Presto Vivace and Reprise. The first thing once again is a synth workout, this time of the Keith Emerson ultrawank variety, only harder to listen to. After that it combines the best of both the past two songs, but its a lot less interesting when youve already heard it.
Next we move to Thirty Years. It begins with violins, and a good little guitar piece, before moving to a verse. The musicianship on this song is superb, but the vocals just fall short with John Wetton singing in a horrible falsetto. About three minutes in it turns too a more upbeat instrumental, but one which stretches a little. Then it goes back to the vocals. Then it just repeats until the end.
On the second side we have the instrumental Alaska. Once again, synthesisers dominate, although nothing really happens for nearly three minutes. Suddenly, we're assaulted by a kickarse riff and the song really begins.
And then all to suddenly it switches to John Wetton singing Time to Kill. The band was smart enough to include that same kickarsery as in Alaska early on, but the song is marred by an instrumental interlude which goes in no direction a tad too long.
The next song, Nevermore, starts with an acoustic guitar solo, which drains a little. As the other instruments come in though, the song starts to fit together, though. The highlight is the keyboard guitar duel in the middle. It ends on a low point with some more meaningless synth chords, and then the whole thing being dragged on because of a need to present lyrics which aren't interesting enough to warrant discussion.
Finally we have Mental Medication, which begins once again, with vocals on top of keyboards. However, this is perhaps the best use of these instruments on this album. This song is musically a summary of every other song on the album, and so you can expect what it sounds like. But it carries it out in a better manner than some of the others.
I wouldn't say this is necessarily a bad album, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone but the most diehard Roxy/Crimso Fans. Although it contains the work of four very talented musicians, it's clear that they didn't work together particularly well, and the music suffered because of that. Oh well, at least it wasn't Asia... More reviews