ISLANDS

King Crimson's fourth album "Islands" was released in 1971 now with Boz Burrell and Ian Wallace replacing Gordon Haskell and Andy McCullough respectively. This new line-up continued with the same jazzy style of the previous album taking it to a new level of madness and experimentation. This was King Crimson's last album with Peter Sinfield on the band and definitely, it is the closure of the first era of King Crimson because after this album Robert Fripp reformed the band once again and changed the musical direction of the band forever. The album explores a lot of different musical styles from Jazz-Rock to Classical Music arrangements and makes an eclectic mixture of sounds that give the album the quality of an underrated masterpiece.

1.- Formentera lady (10:18): The opening song starts as a soft ballad with nice arrangements of double bass and with the unrepeatable voice of Boz Burrell (absolutely different to Lake's and Haskell's voices), then the harmonic piece continues with the drums the bass and the flute collaborating to create a beautiful atmosphere of jazzy notes and signatures; then the singing stops and the instrumental part continues, the flute is replaced by the sax and the improvisation continues until the minute ten, when the cymbals start to beat, giving the entrance to the next song.

2.- Sailor's tale (07:29): An instrumental piece (and definitely my favorite of this album) it has a great Jazz structured drum line accompanied with the electric bass that makes the solid base to more free guitar and sax improvisations.

3.- The letters (04:28): The A-side of the album ends with this 4 and a half minutes piece that starts with a low volume guitar and bass figure until Boz Burrell starts singing again; then Mel Collins plays a low pitched sax line accompanied by Robert Fripp's guitar solo, then Burrell sings again and softly closes the song.

4.- Ladies of the road (05:34): The B-side of the album doesn't have as many Jazz vibes as the A-side, this song is more like a relaxed Rock melody with very powerful sax lines, quite enjoyable.

5.- Prelude: song of the gulls (04:14): This is a beautiful arrangement of chord instruments that gives the album a nice classy touch. Great way to almost close the album

6.- Islands (11:51): The last song has great piano arrangements; it is an amazing symphonic piece that closures the album beautifully; the trumpet and oboe in this piece are amazing.

After this record, King Crimson's music would never be the same. This is a historical record.

SONG RATING: Formentera lady, 5 Sailor's tale, 5 The letters, 5 Ladies of the road, 4 Prelude: song of the gulls, 4 Islands, 5

AVERAGE: 4.67

PERCENTAGE: 93.33

I ranked this album #76 on my TOP 100 favorite Progressive Rock albums of all time.

Share this KING CRIMSON review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to Uruk_hai
• Report this review (#2477608)
• Buy KING CRIMSON music online with PA partners
• Show all KING CRIMSON MP3/Stream
• Go to KING CRIMSON page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to Islands page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for KING CRIMSON related discussions