RED

I've never really got past "In the court of the Crimson King" with King Crimson. After that, they moved more and more towards jazz, with increasingly less rock in evidence. "Red" redresses the balance slightly, and thus I found it more enjoyable than most of their output.

John Wetton's influence both in terms of songwriting and performance enhanced the finished product considerably. With only five tracks in total, they are inevitably pretty long, with "Starless" being the longest at 12 minutes. It's probably also the best track, with the mellotron sound which made their first album so distinctive much in evidence. This gives the track a welcome retro feel. The jazz influence is however still very much there, with improvised sax and guitar rather outstaying their welcome.

The other tracks range from the more rock based "Red" and "One more red nightmare" to the softer "Fallen apart" and the rather uninspired "Providence".

Overall, the rock aspects of the album are reasonably enjoyable, but personally, I'm left cold by the improvisational and jazz inspired parts.

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