The Clash: The Clash

The Clash  (UK version)

Best song: controversially, Police & Thieves

Worst song: What’s My Name

Overall grade: 5

(again, sorry for the delays. Just one more day of school. I promise.)

You’ve probably heard of the Clash; they’re kind of a big deal. I’d heard of them before I started listening to all the 60s and 70s music that fills up most of my collection today. But just in case you still think I’m talking about the noise made when two cymbals are banged together, brief summary: the Clash were an integral part of the British punk rock movement that happened in 1977, which basically means they were big fans of the idea that anyone can start a band, not such big fans of the government, and quite vocal about both of these things. They were originally formed with the intention to be “a new band that would rival the Sex Pistols” but, of course, they would end up out-lasting the Pistols by quite a few years, as well as securing a reputation based more on the music than the shock factor, which the Pistols can’t claim. That said, I’ve never written a piece of English coursework on the Clash.

Interestingly, although Joe Strummer is by far the most well-known member of the Clash, he was actually the last to join. The band existed for quite some time without a lead singer. It wasn’t until Strummer joined that things really got off the ground, though: he has a writing credit on every song but one on this album, along with Mick Jones.

In the list of great punk debuts, this has to be right up there. It didn’t invent British punk, but  it may have given it its enduring appeal. The Clash proved from day one that they knew what they wanted to say and how they were going to say it, and the songs here are loud and punchy but also very listenable, although they never had the same pop inclinations as the Ramones. So yeah, it is very tempting to get up and headbang to these songs, and that’s definitely a lot of fun, but it’s also good to pay attention to the lyrics once in a while, especially on songs like ‘Career Opportunities’ and ‘Hate & War’, both of which offset their fast, fun beat with a meaningful and well-expressed message.

A lot of these songs do sound fairly similar, but standouts include the ridiculously catchy ‘London’s Burning’ and the angry call to action ‘White Riot’. There’s also ‘Deny’, which I think is really underrated; it doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia page but in actual fact it has the best vocal and guitar interplay on the album as well as the ‘you’re such a liarrr…’ hook. The riff that opens ‘What’s My Name’ is really cool, and always makes me really excited to hear the song, but in actual fact it’s quite repetitive and annoying, in a not dissimilar way to the recent Rihanna song of the same title.

Last song of note is the closer ‘Garageland’. It’s a beautiful sentiment: a lot of fans were worried that by signing to CBS Records, the Clash would forget where they came from and become a sell-out corporate band, and this song was the band’s promise they wouldn’t lose sight of their roots. It’s especially relevant coming at the end of their first highly successful album, and its famous opening line ‘Back in the garage with my bullshit detector’ has united crowds at concert venues worldwide.

The only cover on this version of the album is reggae song ‘Police & Thieves’, and it’s extended from the original for a full six minutes. With hindsight it seems obvious, but at the time it was probably a surprising choice of song to cover, with most bands taking on more straightforward rock songs. The Clash made absolutely the right choice, though: their version is absolutely stunning. I’m generally biased against covers and it’s almost unheard of for me to pick one as best song, but here I can’t find a contender. The band have very much put their own signature on the song and each of them does a great job: Simonon’s bass line perfectly drives things along giving a simple and sparse feel, Strummer’s rough and streetwise vocals suit the subject matter and contrast with the ‘oh yeah!’ heard repeated in the background, Jones plays a clever, interesting guitar solo that breaks the song into two parts and the whole song has an odd spacious feel. It’s got enough time to really explore the controlled-anger buildup that helps make it so successful.

That aside, this is, of course, less diverse than some of the band’s later records, and in some ways they were still growing into their talents. But it’s the sound of a group of really passionate young guys writing unrestrainedly about what they believe in, and that really shows through in the music and makes the album a highly enjoyable listen.

So, I reviewed the UK version. Why? The Clash are from the UK. This version came first, it was written to be an album and it’s the album they wanted to put out. The US version is essentially just a compilation that draws very heavily from this album. That’s not to say it’s not worth a listen, though. I’d probably give it the same grade and it does have ‘I Fought The Law’ on it, which is another totally awesome cover (this band just know how to pick them, they really do.) 

Yes: Drama

Drama

Best song: Tempus Fugit

Worst song: White Car

Overall grade: 5

(author’s note: I’m so sorry I’ve been away for a while! I had to send off my university applications on Wednesday so I was working really hard to get those finished, and then I went to Switzerland for a couple of days, and then I had a pretty disastrous Friday night and felt too ill to do anything Saturday. But I promise to try to catch up a little over the next few weeks.)

‘Tormato’ was widely ridiculed – by the fans, by the music press, and somewhat by me, although I doubt my review had any influence on what happened in 1980. What happened was that both Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman quit the band. Not the first time for Wakeman, who was already making a habit of this leaving and rejoining thing, but certainly the first time for Anderson. His departure shocked fans the world over, but not as much as the announcement of the new members: Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes from the Buggles. Yes, the Buggles, who had one song of any note, and that’s just because it was the first video to be played on MTV, and other than that were completely forgettable.

So, two crucial members gone and two new members who came from a plasticky synth-pop group – this album must be terrible, right? Well, actually no. This album is damn good. Quite a few of the songs had pretty much already been written by Howe, Squire and White, and it feels like with just three of them, they were all putting a lot more effort into the songwriting process.

From the opening bars of ‘Machine Messiah’ it’s pretty clear that Yes don’t really fit into the symphonic rock box anymore. They’ve predated King Crimson by a year in mixing New Wave into a hard-edged prog sound and it’s totally awesome. Howe’s guitar is the highlight for me on this sprawling and messy 10 minute epic, and although Downes is no Wakeman, his part is still plenty complicated enough to keep me interested, and he does some good Moog soloing. And it doesn’t feel too far removed from “classic Yes” so as to be a completely different band, still including a lot of their trademarks, like some great vocal harmonies.

‘White Car’ is basically unnecessary, and at only 1 minute 21 seconds, it doesn’t do anything except fill up 1 minute and 21 seconds of vinyl. I guess Downes and Horn wrote it to be an introduction to ‘Does It Really Happen?’, but that song stands up just fine on its own. I’ve heard people say it sounds like a 90125 song, but I don’t get that. Sure, it’s got the arena-sized sound to it, but it’s so much more unique than anything from that album, more inspired, quirkier. In fact, with the slight funk influence that goes into the riffs, it reminds me more of something like ‘Siberian Khatru’ from earlier.

‘Into the Lens’ is my least favourite actual song, and the one that Downes and Horn had the most influence on (it would appear in an alternate version on a later Buggles album). Specifically, I find Horn’s vocal part kind of ugly, and so it’s the one moment when I really miss Jon Anderson’s presence. The melody is simple and accessible, and comparable to what bands like Asia and Kansas were writing, but classier. It’s very listenable, but too safe in places and I don’t really consider it Yes.

‘Run Through The Light’ again has more of a pop influence, but it still works well because there’s so much going on. Yes always include a ballad, and here, this is the one. If it was a Buggles song, it would probably be sickeningly dull, but as a Yes song the pretty melody and soulful mandolin are counterbalanced by White’s awesome drumming and Howe’s purposeful guitar. Horn plays bass instead of Squire, which I’m not too fond of, but it means we get to hear Squire on electric piano (I wish that was a little more prominent.)

The finishing track is ‘Tempus Fugit’, and what a finish it is! It could easily have been extended a bit (this album’s really short). Squire’s bass is just outstanding, and the title’s apt because the time really does just fly by when you’re listening to it, as it picks you up and runs away with you in a whirl of conflicting instrumentation. It’s heavy and intense and really uplifting at the same time. It’s always moving, and it’s got a lot of interesting parts that you can pay close attention to, or you can just let yourself get swept up in the feel of the song, depending on your mood. I’ve no shame in saying that this is one of my favourite Yes songs.

Part of me thinks that Squire, Howe and White would have worked quite well as a trio, just getting session musicians to play on their songs, as they’re clearly the stronger writers. Still, even the Buggles songs have something going for them, and this album is a necessity for any serious Yes fan.

Oh, Trevor Horn produced this album as well as singing, by the way. He did a good job, which is not surprising considering how hard he worked on it… he spent his wedding night in the studio. And most of his honeymoon. Although he originally planned to spend two weeks in Miami with his new wife, this time ended up getting shorter and shorter as he kept working on the album, until they decided not to bother with Miami and go to Bournemouth instead. For three days. And Steve Howe joined them.

Amazingly, they’re still married.

Radiohead: The King of Limbs

The King of Limbs

Best song: Bloom

Worst song: possibly Little By Little

Overall grade: 4

Radiohead are on hiatus. That is a sad statement but an undeniably true one, and as of October 2013, I have no idea whether it’s temporary or permanent. The hiatus commenced immediately following this album – I guess Thom felt like he’d said all he could say with the band, for now. But the question is, did he start to feel that after being done with this album, planning to leave it as his final statement, or did it happen during this album, feeling that it wasn’t going as well as their previous stuff had?

This album’s mostly built on mood. Radiohead have always been pretty minimalist but here there’s less substance than ever before, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. An example of it working well is the opener ‘Bloom’, which has a disorientating electronic rhythm driving it and vocals that wouldn’t sound out of place in a haunted house. ‘Morning Mr Magpie’ isn’t quite as successful, though. I’m not saying there isn’t clever stuff going on in the song – there is – but the band seem to think that ‘Hey, look at this weird sound we can make!’ is a fair substitute for melody, and it’s just not enough. The album isn’t even saved by good track positioning of a progression of moods – everything seems randomly arranged, like the ‘this is an album’ part of things was put second to ‘these are some noises’.

On balance, the biggest problem with this album is that Radiohead have moved solely into ‘interesting’ and too far away from ‘memorable’ or ‘emotional’, two qualities that they’ve never lacked before. I know that every song starts with a different electronic beat that I appreciate at the time, but ask me to recall any of them after the album’s finished and I just can’t.

So I can only be reliable by writing this literally while listening to it, which I am. And I can say that ‘Lotus Flower’ is actually a good song, with a very creepy atmosphere and a kind of separation between its different layers, with breezy vocals used more for effect than to carry the song. I’m also going to highlight ‘Codex’, which doesn’t fit in with the rest of the album at all, and, in fact, you can pretty much ignore everything else I’ve said when thinking about this song, a powerful piano-led ode that belongs in that moment of a movie when the main character has lost all hope, and pretty much has no electronics in sight. The next song, ‘Give Up The Ghost’, is a counterpart on the acoustic guitar but less successful, similarly pretty but lacking in any real meaning like some of the earlier songs.

None of these songs are actually bad, and to say this is a bad album from Radiohead would be a lie. But to say it’s a good album would also be a lie. It’s a pretty low 4 because, although there are songs worthy of this band name, with quite a few of the songs, I really have nothing to say. They’re empty shells of Radiohead songs. I listen to them, and I don’t feel a thing.

I really hope Radiohead get back together at some point. Not because I want to see them live – although I do, more than almost anyone – but because I think they’re capable of a much better swansong than this, and more importantly, they deserve one.

Roxy Music: Roxy Music

Roxy Music

Best song: Re-Make/Re-Model

Worst song: The Bob

Overall grade: 6

My second new artist for this week will be… Roxy Music! That’s pretty exciting, as is this album. Every time I listen to either of the first two Roxy albums, I feel like I’m discovering them for the first time, almost like Eno and Ferry are changing the music each time you hear it, just to mess with your head and make you feel like you’re listening to something entirely different. Still, it’s always just as good, and I love the feeling it gives me, like I’m venturing into the unknown.

So. Roxy Music was formed by Bryan Ferry between 1970 and 1971 after he’d failed to win his audition for King Crimson (can you imagine if he had won?!) and was originally supposed to have Davy O’List, that guy from the Nice, on guitars, but he quit before this album was recorded. I can see how he would have been drawn to the band in the first place and I like to imagine him playing this album at home just after its release, sick with jealousy. The band picked up their second choice, Phil Manzanera, and almost immediately they were ready to start recording.

Of course, what makes this album brilliant is the perfect balance between the indulgent, high-society glam-rock that Ferry writes and the general insane weirdness that Brian Eno brings to the table. To see this in action, you need look no further than the opening track ‘Re-Make/Re-Model’. It opens with a recording of a large room of people talking, and a guy tapping on the side of his glass, as if he’s going to make a speech. This song is the speech. Dripping with mellotron and saxophone, this song actually rocks really hard, which you wouldn’t expect if you only knew the band’s later albums. It also shows just how smart this band is. They wanted to prove they weren’t just your everyday glam rock band, and so included a bunch of little references to other pieces from all genres and periods of music. You can listen out for ‘Day Tripper’, but there’s a bunch of others too, and I’m sure I’ve missed some.

Moving swiftly on, we have ‘Ladytron’. The beginning melody always reminds me a little of ‘Outside the Wall’, but predates it by about 7 years, so that’s impossible. Anyway, this song donated its name to a British electronic band years in 1999, which gives an idea of how ahead of its time and futuristic-sounding it was. Repetitively synthy and containing a wonderfully eclectic mix of sounds and emotions, Bryan Ferry’s acquired-taste voice is not yet the central aspect of the band’s sound – it’s just used to add flavour. (And when I say acquired taste, I mean in the exact OPPOSITE way that, say, Jon Anderson is an acquired taste.)

There’s a little descending guitar line that opens ‘If There Is Something’ and it’s awesome. Mostly, I like the song because it includes the country and blues-rock influences that so many prog and art-rock bands of the time completely rejected, and proves that these styles can make interesting, inventive music too.

Eno lets Ferry take the lead on ‘2H.B.’, the latter’s tribute to famous film star Humphrey Bogart. It’s a quietly timeless track that wouldn’t sound out of place at a late night intimate soiree, and creates an entirely different atmosphere to the early tracks, and it is all atmosphere, except for the vocals and electric piano that carry the song through. Did I mention the other King Crimson tie-in? This album is produced by Peter Sinfield, and now that he’s not let loose on the lyrics, he does a good job – this song in particular stands out with its pensive production.

Sadly, opening side two is the album’s only real flaw. It just seems like such a waste! There are a LOT of good musical ideas in ‘The Bob’, but for whatever reason – laziness, time constraints, lack of ideas, whatever – their chances of becoming full songs was stolen from underneath them, and they were all thrown together in this, a song that, every time you get into it, abruptly changes and throws you off course, leaving you disappointed.

Ferry must be a big movie buff, because I’ve heard ‘Chance Meeting’ is some kind of homage to the film ‘Brief Encounter’. I’ve never seen it, so when I listen to the song I more think about the spacey, endless sax notes and how they work with the wash of smooth vocals and the short, fast, evenly spaced piano plinking.‘Would You Believe’ is, at first, a beautiful jazzy ballad that abruptly picks up the pace and becomes something that makes you want to get up and dance, getting faster and culminating in a fast-paced solo before a gorgeous lament of an ending.

To finish is ‘Sea Breezes’, which is mostly quiet and minimalistic, and I’ve also heard it described as peaceful – but I’ve always heard a kind of creepy undertone, something a little shady going on just beneath the surface. And then ‘Bitters End’, which is a short, fun coda to the album that has another good sax part and an informal, winding-down feel to it.

The first side of this album is worthy of a 7 for sure. The second side is still extremely high quality, although not quite in the same league as it’s a little more safe and mainstream-sounding,  and if it wasn’t for ‘The Bob’ I’d be happy to put this as one of my very favourite records. Still highly recommended and the opening track is probably your best starting point with the band, if you’re art-music inclined at all.

David Bowie: Space Oddity

Space Oddity

Best song: Come on, really? Do I even need to say it? …Space Oddity.

Worst song: Unwashed And Somewhat Slightly Dazed

Overall grade: 3

After spending a few weeks powering through Floyd, dealing with a bunch of requests and random side projects, and generally having to put off writing reviews in favour of completing university applications, I’m finally doing what I promised I’d do a month ago, and starting on a couple of new artists. First of these is David Bowie, and I’m planning to tackle his entire 70s discography as well as selected later works.

Bowie did have an album before this one, officially, but to all intents and purposes his career started when he released the single ‘Space Oddity’. In June 1969 it managed to capture the heart of a generation of people who were fascinated by space and had it constantly on their minds in the wake of the first moon landings. Its rise up the charts is one of those pivotal moments in music history, one that always makes you wonder what would have been without it.

Almost forty-five years later, space is still a source of interest to a lot of people, and the song hasn’t lost any of its power. It’s a crushingly sad tale, but we should have seen it coming all along – the opening is creepy and ominous, which both represents Major Tom’s fear of the unknown and foreshadows the climax. Slowly, torturously, it ripples and builds, until we hear the first call of ‘Ground control to Major Tom…’. I forget just how cool the lyrics are sometimes; organised as a conversation between Major Tom up in his spacecraft and the people back on the Earth who are monitoring him. They carefully give him instructions: ‘Take your protein pills and put your helmet on’, and he’s just excited and overwhelmed by the whole experience: ‘I’m floating in a most peculiar way/And the stars look very different today!’ There’s the poignant moment of ‘Tell my wife I love her very much/She knows!’ coming right before the unexpected shock of ‘Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong/Can you hear me, Major Tom?’ They sound panicked, but Tom can’t hear them, so he interrupts with his ‘Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do…’ All communication between them is dead, and the implication is that he soon will be too, out there on his own. In around three minutes, Bowie’s managed to create a character that I care about so much and who seems so real that it breaks my heart when he’s left stranded in outer space.

This portion of the song is, of course, focused on the vocals (although there are the obligatory spacey whooshing noises) but there’s a two-minute jam session to finish, featuring the lovely Mellotron sounds of the wonderful Rick Wakeman, while Bowie himself plays a Stylophone (I heard that he only included that on a dare) and it feels like a much needed release of tension spiralling out.

I’ve heard a few different interpretations of the song – that it’s a metaphor for heroin use and that it’s criticising the British space program – but I prefer to take it at face value, as an excellently crafted story perfectly matched with its accompanying music. It may have mostly become famous due to the circumstances of its release, but I think it would have stood out at any time.    

Sadly, this album is not just ‘Space Oddity’, though it’d probably be better if it was. I don’t really see why anyone would choose to listen to this all the way through. A case in point is second track ‘Unwashed And Somewhat Slightly Dazed’, a ridiculous Dylan pastiche that completely makes a mockery of Bowie. In ‘Letter to Hermione’, Bowie himself sounds bored and like he’s not all that interested in the song. I’m not either, the melody’s pretty dull.

The one other good song on this album is ‘Cygnet Committee’, which uses prog influences (maybe from hanging out with Wakeman) and an outstanding and emotional vocal performance to completely justify its ambitious 10 minute length. Lyrically it doesn’t always make sense, although it has its moments of clarity, but the music is actually probably more dynamic than the title track, seamlessly transitioning through a few distinct phases that show Bowie’s innate songwriting talent even this early on in his career. I love the ending, where the vocals become more echoey, gradually getting further away, as the drums become more rhythmic and staccato – cool effect.

Sadly, the second side is basically filler. ‘Janine’ is a fairly forgettable finger of folk-pop, ‘An Occasional Dream’ is very pretty and nostalgic at the beginning and has some occasional nice flute playing but gets kind of stagnant, ‘Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud’ begins in a very similar way to the title track and so disappoints me when it’s not, ‘God Knows I’m Good’ has really annoying, almost unlistenable vocals and a melody that’s repetitive and nowhere near good enough to make up for it. And ‘Memory Of A Free Festival’… it’s in two parts, the first quiet and reflective and the second slightly louder and with more of a sense of community. Honestly, both parts should have been cut out of the song. But if I had to pick one to cut, I’d pick the second part. Bowie’s singing on autopilot and it all sounds very clunky, the different parts out of time with each other.

TL;DR version: Listen to ‘Space Oddity’. The song, that is. Listen to it every day for the rest of your life. Never get tired of it. Listen to ‘Cygnet Committee’ pretty often too if you like it, which I do. Everything else should be treated as more of a historical document than something that’s still supposed to be listened to. I know I can look back on it, shake my head in bewilderment and think ‘who would have predicted…?’

The Who: By Numbers

The Who By Numbers

Best song: Slip Kid

Worst song: Squeeze Box

Overall grade: 5

From what I understand, the general consensus surrounding this album has worsened over the years. It was originally released to great acclaim (although considering how huge The Who were around the time, people may have just not wanted to rock the boat) but since then most people have expressed a distaste for its more introspective and self-conscious style.

But I heard most of the Who albums before I had any idea what other people thoughts of them. And while, in some cases (see: ‘Face Dances’) I later discovered that my opinion was basically identical to everyone else’s, with ‘By Numbers’ I was quite shocked by all the criticism, because I’d always really liked the album.

Thing is, Pete Townshend had tried three times to make a perfect rock opera, and with ‘Quadrophenia’ he’d basically succeeded. He was hardly going to go back into the studio and make another one, knowing that it could never live up to the standard he’d set himself. Clearly, his only option was to make an album so completely different that people would never compare it to its predecessor.

Yet here I am, comparing them. ‘Quadrophenia’ was a wonderful story, but it’s only here that I feel like I’m getting to know Pete Townshend as a person. ‘Imagine a Man’, ‘However Much I Booze’ and particularly ‘How Many Friends’ are painfully intimate and confessional: ‘How many friends have I really got/That love me, that want me, that'll take me as I am?’ The rest of the band are constantly giving these highly personal compositions the respect they deserve, even when, like on ‘However Much I Booze’, the uptempo music doesn’t seem to quite fit with the mood of the song. But maybe that’s just to give Pete’s vocal performance (one of his best; move over, Daltrey) even more gravity.

It’s not all doom and gloom. Those who call the album ‘Pete Townshend’s suicide note’ obviously have copies that omit side two’s ‘Blue Red & Grey’, a stunning ballad about enjoying all parts of life rather than always waiting for one thing in particular. It doesn’t really have any traditional rock instruments, it’s just ukulele (and a few horns) which again makes it sound different to the rest of the album, but the gentle, quiet instrument is perfect – it puts the focus on the lyrics and complements the simplicity of the message perfectly.

My pick for best track here is the opener ‘Slip Kid’, a great demonstration of Townshend’s talent for combining an infectious melody with a serious message and something a bit unconventional thrown in there too. It really plays out like ‘here’s the same band that made ‘My Generation’, only with 10 years more experience’. It’s very dynamic and guest Nicky Hopkins plays a neat bit of piano, playing off Keith Moon in a great, idiosyncratic way. It has the same feel of a classic that ‘Baba O’Riley’ and ‘Love Reign O’er Me’ do, but, perhaps unfairly, never got the same recognition.

Still, I guess hating on this album is justified if you’re only talking about ‘Squeeze Box’, a song with an incredibly annoying and generic melody that’s far too immature for someone who’s just turned 30. It really disrupts the flow of the album with its cringey, over-sexualised lyrics and the repulsive ‘in and out and in and out’ part. Disappointing, because without this I'd be able to play on one of the album's lyrics and say 'I like every minute of this record'.

Good news to counteract that terrible song is that Entwhistle hasn’t been forgotten. He gets a word in edgeways with side two opener ‘Success Story’, and in true Pink Floyd style, it’s a sarcastic criticism of the music business that shows off his talent and versatility as a musician and contrasts the quieter acoustic numbers on the album with some glam rock and space rock influences. Lastly, final track 'In A Hand Or A Face', while nowhere near as climactic as some closers they've done, is definitely work noting for its distinctive riff and almost gospel-like chorus.

 Personally, I’d be the first to mention this album in a conversation about ‘overlooked gems’ or whatever, and I’d really encourage anyone who’s dismissed it before to have another listen – it’s obvious that it can be easily overshadowed by the massive scale (both commercially and musically) of their previous efforts, but, though it’s making a very different statement, it’s one that’s just as valid – and enjoyable.

King Crimson: Discipline

Discipline

Best song: Indiscipline

Worst song: I like them all, but Frame By Frame?

Overall grade: 6

Ah, King Crimson. I’m going to miss reviewing them. A band so inconsistent that they can’t even be consistent in their inconsistency… this album is almost as good as the last one! Of course, it’s allowed, because this came after a seven-year hiatus during which the band was broken up “for good” and during which Robert Fripp was doing solo stuff (which incidentally, is also pretty good) and, unsurprisingly, there’s been another lineup change. Tony Levin has replaced John Wetton on bass and the wonderful Adrian Belew has joined us to play guitar and sing (aren’t we lucky?!)

Seriously, two thirds of the ‘Red’ trio might still be around, but 80s King Crimson is a mile away from that album. There’s still a focus on instrumental work and experimenting, but it’s very much of its time, taking influence from a bunch of other bands who were relatively new at the time, most notably the Talking Heads but also

Songs. There are seven. (I’m not great with sentences today, it seems.) The first one is called ‘Elephant Talk’, and I love it, which is quite strange, because I find Belew’s vocal performance really disturbing – he sounds like he’s out of his mind. The lyrics are great, and it’s not often you can say that about this band. Some electronic backbeats keep you on your toes and it’s all topped off with a guitar sound that’s never been recreated – it’s uncategorisable.

‘Frame By Frame’ is when Levin comes to the fore with some really interesting basswork, but I can’t always hear it so well because Belew is mixed so high. It’s stylistically pretty similar to the opener but a bit more soundscapey and a bit less mind-boggling. ‘Matte Kudasai’ is a bit more slow-tempoed than the two preceding it. It’s got some great sound effects, like the guitars that sound like angry bird cries that pop up occasionally, and it’s surprisingly melodic and emotional, filling the place of the ballad that Crimson like to throw in occasionally to shake things up. A better version can be found in amongst the bonus tracks, that has an interesting guitar part from Fripp worked into it.

Then comes ‘Indiscipline’, and it’s just flat-out crazy, it’s… put it this way, you used to be able to look up the Wikipedia page for ‘Indiscipline’, and there were at least twenty different genres listed for the song, including psychedelic metal, which I’d never even heard of. And all twenty of those genres seemed to fit the song. It’s such a freak-out, with amazingly chaotic and out-of-control instrumental sections interspersed with robotic vocal parts that are almost too… well, disciplined. ‘I repeat myself when under stress’, Belew intones, several times in a row, and it’s pure genius. If you’ve got five minutes to spare and you’re only going to listen to one song from this album, this is definitely the one.

Course, nothing on side two could come close to that. They try, though. Like ‘Thela Hun Ginjeet’ – this is a polyrhythmic song, meaning it is played in two different time signatures simultaneously. (One of my friends told me I didn’t use enough technical terms in my reviews, so that one’s for her.) It’s such a cool effect. However, this is probably the furthest removed from Crimson in their previous incarnations, focusing mostly on the beat and the new short, clipped style. (Is this prog-techno?) In other news, this is the last vocal track on the album, which is a bit of a disappointment. Belew’s my second favourite Crimson vocalist after Lake, and for this material specifically, he probably is the best guy for the job.

In contrast, ‘The Sheltering Sky’, the first of two instrumentals that close the album, is closest to old Crimson – not even 1974-era, but going right back to their roots with ‘In the Court’. It’s probably a bit more easy-listening than anything else here, although it does have just as much substance if you pay attention – some real virtuoso playing and a few world music influences here and there. And the title track lives up to its name by displaying how well and how effortlessly the new band members have fit together, and is a great example of them playing off each other really well.

Overall, the best word I can find to describe this album is paranoid. All these crazy rhythms, they don’t want to stay still for too long, even the notes don’t, so they’re always jumping around and forever looking over their shoulders to check nothing’s coming to get them. There’s so much life in this record – like one day it’s going to jump out of your CD player and become something more than a flat disc.

Whether intentional or not, this was the perfect album for the band to make at the time – it was progressive and just plain weird enough to keep their long-time fans excited and yet relevant and cutting-edge enough to bring them to a whole new audience. On their next two albums, they tried to achieve this balance again, but found themselves focusing more on current trends than their own legacy, and this album remains as the only surviving studio document of the fusion of the two styles.

 (I should have done The Who today but I’m doing this instead, in celebration of the fact that KING CRIMSON ARE REFORMING! I could not be more excited about this and I’m just really hoping I get the chance to see them. The Who tomorrow.)