King Crimson - Three Of A Perfect Pair (1984)

I thought perhaps of writing a review in consideration of the holidays, but since I'm not technically writing this anywhere near Christmas and I'm becoming a bit weary of this business, I'm going to simply say nasty clever things about a band I actually like. Or try to. The man and his kingdom of poo will undoubtedly put up a spirited defense in my absence and so I will parry in advance by saying: duh!

Here's a bit of curlicue logic, so follow me: Fripp never intended to reform KC and had instead formed a band to be called Discipline, which resulted instead in Fripp realizing he had merely reformed KC and they thereunto released the excellent Discipline as KC, circa 1981. Discipline was a dizzying amalgam of tautly conceived tunes featuring lovely arpeggios, delicious bass blurblings and the odd vocal croonings of Adrian Belew. Ever drank powdered Gatorade? When I was in Iraq I used to mix powdered Gatorade into a water bottle particularly because I became disgusted with plain water. Well, sometimes I would be in the unenviable position of drinking most of it and having additional water available, but no extra powder. So what I would do is pour a little bit of water from one bottle into the one I had, hoping to get more bang for my buck. Invariably, it tasted a little less sweet, but was still more bearable than plain water. Still having no access to powder, I would pour just a touch more water into the bottle. The result of my gambling? Colored water. Yuck.

So if you want to listen to Three Of A Perfect Pair, you will be drinking colored water -- a thoroughly diluted mutation of an original with barely any trace of what tasted so good about it in the first place. I obviously won't go more into why Discipline was so good, because that's another review, but be aware that, as my additional aside, Beat (1982), is the equivalent of slightly less sweet admixture before it became ruined. There. F

King Crimson - Red (1974)

At a modest forty minutes, the five songs that make up Red seem more or less like a pluterperfect distillation of what these fellows were probably feeling leading up to their break-up. Color psychology aside, you certainly don't need to see anything to hear the aggression. A touch of violin here, a bit of brass there, but otherwise this album is a proverbial "heavy" -- which is nice that they didn't end their 70s heyday with a whimper. This stuff is prime beef, for sure, and my second favorite King Crimson album.

Let's begin with the only problem: "Providence." Unfortunately, it's a mindless bit of noodling for my taste. Understandably, it's easy for an unaccomplished musician such as yours truly to be awash in the vile taint of abject criticism; but I plead ignorance on eight minutes of random violin streaks and what appears to be an afternoon jam session after a plate of crumpets. I'd tell Robert Fripp personally. "Red," is a visceral instrumental that evokes quite the opposite of tenderness and gives ample reason why; "Fallen Angel" alternates between acoustic and electric guitar and so switches from particularly heavy bombastic flourishes with accompanied brass to slow and melodic passages with vocals; "One More Red Nightmare" is absolutely brilliant stuff, man -- my favorite track, perhaps. I dig the sludgy arpeggiated funk, if that's an acceptable description. "Starless" is a great closer, not only to the album, but to an era -- an era wholly designed, constructed, inhabited and set unduly afire by King Crimson -- a song featuring all the elements of what made them so interesting: loose, explosive drumming, my favorite-instrument-which-is-not-the-guitar, the Mellotron, some sax, a touch of violin and vintage Frippian electric nastiness. A solid B+