IN THE WAKE OF POSEIDON

IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING is one of the greatest progressive rock albums of all time as their merger of classical, jazz and rock went further into the experimental territory than any other band before. Riding the crest of that wave of success, the follow-up IN THE WAKE OF POSEIDON leaves a lot to be desired.

I never saw POSEIDON as nothing more than CRIMSON KING II. We could look at ''Pictures of a City'', ''Cadence and Cascade'' and the title track as weaker versions of the first three tracks from their debut. I never really understood what the ''Peace'' tracks meant to do other than serve as nice interludes. The RIO attempt in ''The Devil's Triangle'' is nice, but it unfortunately ''borrows'' the main theme to Gustav Holst's ''Mars-Bringer of War''. The only great track here is the jazzier ''Cat Food''. One of those ''get-at-your-own-risk'' albums.