Released: 1973
Tracks: Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Part One; Book of Saturday; Exiles; Easy Money; The Talking Drum; Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Part Two
Best track: Larks’ Part One
Track to skip: none
I absolutely love the intro to Larks’ One. I also quite love the entire track, esp. when it gets noisy and heavy. Rock!! I haven’t owned this album for too long, in comparison to the other Crimson albums. I think maybe only 2 years as of this review. I’ve been familiar with the songs themselves, but not the album as a whole. Except for Larks’ One and Book of Saturday, the live versions of these songs from the Great Deceiver boxset are vastly superior. I think being more used to the live versions, and how damn ferocious they are, when I got this I thought it was so tame. Crimson? Tame?
I’m still not convinced by the studio version of Exiles. It sounds too much like all the other art rock from the 70’s. Well, the intro is absolutely trippy, but the song itself is only mediocre in the studio version. But talking about the good tracks, both Larks’ One and Saturday are incredible compositions. And that they’re right next to each other makes them both even more powerful. Lark’s One switches direction about 20 times and is structurally one of the most unpredictable songs I’ve ever heard. I’d also say it’s Crimson’s 2nd best instrumental (Fracture being the best; that’s one of the most exciting pieces of music I’ve ever heard).
The real meat of the album is actually the songs that bookend it. I think that Exiles, Easy Money & Talking Drum are all cool songs, but compared to the later live versions, they’re very harmless. I think another problem I have in this album is Wetton’s voice. He doesn’t have that presence that he has on the live recordings. His voice is almost feeble on Exiles and Easy Money. He sounds great singing on Saturday however. Still, Wetton’s bass playing on this album is nothing short of jawdropping. I still hear his playing on Larks’ Part One and just go “Damn…”. All 5 of the players (Wetton, Fripp, Cross, Bruford & Muir) are all exceptional and huge improvements on the otherwise excellent past Crimsos. This album was the start of some amazing things for King Crimson, and most people regard it as one of the best KC albums ever. I’m still not in that camp, but I enjoy the heck out of it. The mere presence of LTIA I & BoS bring this up higher than it might normally be. Those two are awesome tracks.
Rating: 88
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