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Eleanor Rigby 14 · 09-09-2021, 02:35 PM

Islands by King Crimson

TRACKLIST
1. Formentera Lady
2. Sailor's Tale
3. The Letters
4. Ladies Of The Road
5. Prelude-Song Of The Gulls
6. Islands

King Crimson and Emerson, Lake & Palmer were the “legendary” prog rock bands I got familiar with most recently. I thought that just with Pink Floyd, Genesis, Alan Parsons’ Project and Yes I had enough and that the rest of progressive rock bands were just imitations of these 4, or maybe precursors to them whom I respected but didn’t think I’d enjoy. Also, even though I love prog rock, I don’t really listen to that genre very oftenly, because I end up thinking about imaginary tales and about how horrible life is (that goes for Pink Floyd’s 75% of their catalogue). But goin’ back to King Crimson, they actually have some albums I kind of liked (e. g. In The Court Of The Crimson King, Lizard and Discipline), but still they just don’t seem that good for me, because, many times, there’re parts of one song I love, and parts of that same song I hate. I would describe their style as a little bit chaotic, and this album is, in fact, very chaotic. All the songs were written by Robert Fripp and the lyrics, by Peter Sinfield, and this was the last time he collaborated with the band. This is also the first album featuring Boz Burrell, both on vocals and on bass guitar. Because King Crimson went through many line-up changes, just gonna say that the band members at this time were: Robert Fripp, Boz Burrell, Mel Collins and Ian Wallace. Many people describe this as their weakest effort, and although I knew this before listening to it, I thought it was gonna be a lot better than what this people said. Whether I agree or disagree with these opinions will be revealed at the end of this review, given the final mark.

The album starts off with “Formentera Lady”. Even though the title makes reference to one of my favourite Spanish cities, I don’t like the song. Not even Mel Collins (whom I adore) saved this one. I don’t know, just didn’t enjoy it very much. And I must say that I love wind instruments being used in rock songs. It just makes them more powerful and beautiful at the same time. But no, not on this one. If a song is boring, then it’s boring and there’s nothing a whole orchestra can do about it. And the fact that it lasts 10 minutes doesn’t help either. The next one (“Sailor’s Tale”) is a lot better in my opinion, there’re more things goin’ on, but it ain’t really something I’d like to hear more than once. Moving on to “The Letters”, the beginning gave me the hope it was gonna be a lot better than the previous ones, like A LOT BETTER, at a different level, but still everything gets chaotic, like it sometimes seems as if King Crimson didn’t really know at what moment they had to do the “change”. I don’t know if I’m explaining myself, but many times it just seems that they do everything “randomly”. And experts might say: “That’s art, dear”. Hell no, it doesn’t sound pleasant to me, and I know I might not hear that track in my life anymore. I don’t hate it or anything like that, I just don’t like it. But then again who am I, a person who thinks ABBA is a billion times better than King Crimson, to criticize what most people who “understand music” appreciate and love. I must confess that the A side of this album annoys me for some reason, but I must also admit that side B is a lot better. The fourth song “Ladies Of The Road”, still doesn’t really sound interesting, but I think it has some OK moments, like that “ All of you know that the girls of the road are like apples we stole in our youth” bit which was quite surprising, because I’m the number one fan of vocal harmonies, but still it’s not really something I would consider to be “really good”. That term would be used to describe our fifth track: “Prelude-Song Of The Gulls”. It’s actually surprising how they were able to spend more than 4 minutes without spoiling their own work by introducing some random fuzz guitar solo. It’s a very nice piece of music, I love it, really. It’s the only one of this album that could be considered as great. Fortunately the album is short, as it ends with “Islands”, being the sixth song. This one’s OK. It’s kinda nice, too. I love how the piano and the saxophone are being used on this one.
So, to sum up, first of all, Mel Collin’s work is amazing as always. And Boz Burrell was OK. I read as a fun fact that he didn’t know how to play bass guitar and Robert Fripp taught him. Oh, and he can also sing well. We should blame it all on Robert Fripp then, for not coming up with good compositions (except “Prelude”).
Overall rating: 4/10. Sorry, you can’t expect one and a half good songs to save your whole album.
Would it be successful today? No. Prog rock is still a popular genre. There’re many bands playing it, and with better compositions and having little to no success.

09-09-2021, 02:35 PM	#36 (permalink)
Eleanor Rigby 14 Music Addict Join Date: Jan 2021 Location: Madrid, Spain Posts: 413	Islands by King Crimson TRACKLIST 1. Formentera Lady 2. Sailor's Tale 3. The Letters 4. Ladies Of The Road 5. Prelude-Song Of The Gulls 6. Islands King Crimson and Emerson, Lake & Palmer were the “legendary” prog rock bands I got familiar with most recently. I thought that just with Pink Floyd, Genesis, Alan Parsons’ Project and Yes I had enough and that the rest of progressive rock bands were just imitations of these 4, or maybe precursors to them whom I respected but didn’t think I’d enjoy. Also, even though I love prog rock, I don’t really listen to that genre very oftenly, because I end up thinking about imaginary tales and about how horrible life is (that goes for Pink Floyd’s 75% of their catalogue). But goin’ back to King Crimson, they actually have some albums I kind of liked (e. g. In The Court Of The Crimson King, Lizard and Discipline), but still they just don’t seem that good for me, because, many times, there’re parts of one song I love, and parts of that same song I hate. I would describe their style as a little bit chaotic, and this album is, in fact, very chaotic. All the songs were written by Robert Fripp and the lyrics, by Peter Sinfield, and this was the last time he collaborated with the band. This is also the first album featuring Boz Burrell, both on vocals and on bass guitar. Because King Crimson went through many line-up changes, just gonna say that the band members at this time were: Robert Fripp, Boz Burrell, Mel Collins and Ian Wallace. Many people describe this as their weakest effort, and although I knew this before listening to it, I thought it was gonna be a lot better than what this people said. Whether I agree or disagree with these opinions will be revealed at the end of this review, given the final mark. The album starts off with “Formentera Lady”. Even though the title makes reference to one of my favourite Spanish cities, I don’t like the song. Not even Mel Collins (whom I adore) saved this one. I don’t know, just didn’t enjoy it very much. And I must say that I love wind instruments being used in rock songs. It just makes them more powerful and beautiful at the same time. But no, not on this one. If a song is boring, then it’s boring and there’s nothing a whole orchestra can do about it. And the fact that it lasts 10 minutes doesn’t help either. The next one (“Sailor’s Tale”) is a lot better in my opinion, there’re more things goin’ on, but it ain’t really something I’d like to hear more than once. Moving on to “The Letters”, the beginning gave me the hope it was gonna be a lot better than the previous ones, like A LOT BETTER, at a different level, but still everything gets chaotic, like it sometimes seems as if King Crimson didn’t really know at what moment they had to do the “change”. I don’t know if I’m explaining myself, but many times it just seems that they do everything “randomly”. And experts might say: “That’s art, dear”. Hell no, it doesn’t sound pleasant to me, and I know I might not hear that track in my life anymore. I don’t hate it or anything like that, I just don’t like it. But then again who am I, a person who thinks ABBA is a billion times better than King Crimson, to criticize what most people who “understand music” appreciate and love. I must confess that the A side of this album annoys me for some reason, but I must also admit that side B is a lot better. The fourth song “Ladies Of The Road”, still doesn’t really sound interesting, but I think it has some OK moments, like that “ All of you know that the girls of the road are like apples we stole in our youth” bit which was quite surprising, because I’m the number one fan of vocal harmonies, but still it’s not really something I would consider to be “really good”. That term would be used to describe our fifth track: “Prelude-Song Of The Gulls”. It’s actually surprising how they were able to spend more than 4 minutes without spoiling their own work by introducing some random fuzz guitar solo. It’s a very nice piece of music, I love it, really. It’s the only one of this album that could be considered as great. Fortunately the album is short, as it ends with “Islands”, being the sixth song. This one’s OK. It’s kinda nice, too. I love how the piano and the saxophone are being used on this one. So, to sum up, first of all, Mel Collin’s work is amazing as always. And Boz Burrell was OK. I read as a fun fact that he didn’t know how to play bass guitar and Robert Fripp taught him. Oh, and he can also sing well. We should blame it all on Robert Fripp then, for not coming up with good compositions (except “Prelude”). Overall rating: 4/10. Sorry, you can’t expect one and a half good songs to save your whole album. Would it be successful today? No. Prog rock is still a popular genre. There’re many bands playing it, and with better compositions and having little to no success.