STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK

By my count there is one 5-star song on this: The Night Watch, which is incredibly melodic and diverse, with it's shimmering opening, thoughtful lyrics, a great Fripp guitar solo. It's also readily accessible, which some may view as a minus, but for me, really, I'm thinking this is one of the finest songs KC has recorded.

Great Deceiver and Trio are both pretty good songs, but the rest of the album just doesn't seem to go anywhere, save for the latter half of Fracture.

I love Great Deceiver's lyrics, the refrain of which is apparently a catalogue of things which people take solace in, only to eventually suffer because of said solace: cigarettes, ice cream, figurines of the Virgin Mary. And of course the song, being a rhythmic monster, is a classic KC opening track.

But in the end, there's a bit too much meandering jamming here for my tastes. Obviously KC fans will either already have this album or want to get it -- you wouldn't want to be without The Night Watch -- but for everyone else it can go pretty low on your list of must-have albums.

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