STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK

Starless And Bible Black comes at the listener with all the subtlety of a bar room brawl only better choreographed and punctually orchestrated. The unfocused period of Lizard and Islands were well out of scope and the Fripp/Wetton/Bruford/Cross line up had exercised their strength with Larks Tongues In Aspic and by this album were a well oiled machine working together in complete harmony and consistency. "The Great Deceiver" could be an auto biographical song concerning Robert Fripp, in title only though, as The Crimson King tore his King Crimson vision through another line up but one that would leave their most impending legacy and strongest progression to date. Even more so than the Adrian Belew era of the eighties that produced Discipline and its two weaker clones, Beat and Three Of A Perfect Pair. The energy and convincing aggression on Starless And Bible Black is wide and consuming. The recording at the AIR Studios is massive and the bass tone especially sounds wide and vibrant while it gives plenty of scope especially to the two longer tracks on the B side of the album. The manic doom filled and aptly titled album ender "Fracture" and title track "Starless And Bible Black", which scorches away on progressive passages of improvisation juxtaposed with well arranged interplay between the musicians. In the eye of the storm lies a beautiful gentle flowing number. Tagging on to the back of "The Night Watch" "Trio" is excellently polarised with the rest of material on the album though inconspicuously fits into the concept giving an added texture but it soon crashes into "The Mincer", probably the weakest song on the album that comes across as an unfinished aimless jam that ends quite abruptly. Starless And Bible Black like its bookended counterparts is a timeless album. The mark of any skilled group of like minded musicians is an ideal to produce music that may be peerless without thinking it to be peerless. The method in which the musicians approached the music through their instruments is extremely intelligent. The trilogy of albums released by King Crimson in the mid seventies are well ahead of their time. Starless And Bible Black sits in the middle chronologically and musically almost tearing between Larks Tongues In Aspic and Red albums. A great release of tension.