LIZARD

The most jazzy album by KING CRIMSON, characterized by the presence of such guest stars, including Jon ANDERSON from YES; but the dark tone of "Circus" and generally the dark tone of the whole mini-suite, make this album very interesting. The use of sax is very clever and the guitar style very well balanced, even though better things had to come after. After all the present issue is one of the most underrated albums by K.C., as it's more accessible in comparison to their music standard, moreover containing that famous suite in which even Jon Anderson made a special performance!! In fact their use of strings was more jazzy once again, while They were able to alternate the melodic moments with those darkest ones (the track "Circus" is the best example), characterized by interesting harmonic solutions at the guitar, that I prefer...ok don't get me wrong, I like the atonal scales by R. Fripp and his "brainy" style, but from time to time I need to hear something easier, always at the condition that K.C. preserve a certain originality, in spite of searching for an immediate contamination between rock and jazz (usually in a few circumstances). Here They tried to compose a number of pretty melodic lines, yet sometimes being uneven.never mind, cause Fripp & C. often reached this goal (otherwise however being helped by important session men) and therefore, despite of remarking its important distance in comparison to their best (actually a few ones) experimental accessible works, "Lizard" is more versatile and worth checking out at the end.so add another half star at least, despite of the arrangements being sometimes uneven.