IN THE WAKE OF POSEIDON

The second album by KC is a record uncertain of which direction to take, so it is found to be a precursor of various musical genres that the crimson king will take in his various incarnations. The structure of the first side refers entirely to that of the previous album, making it so unoriginal.

The first track, "Peace: a Beginning" is a short introduction based on vocals which has the task of dictating the tone of the album: dreamy, evocative, peace and love (vaguely hippy).

The second song, "Pictures of a City", has the ungrateful task of replicating the devastating effect that 21st Century Schizoid Man has had on the listener of "In The Court of....": it is clear that it fails, resulting in the draft (slowed down, less incisive, less surprising, more forced) than the original. In itself it is not a bad song, indeed, for some groups (but not for KC) it would be a masterpiece, but overall it is too built. Vote: 7,5.

"Cadence and Cascade" see for the first time the voice of Gordon Haskell, voice more serious and less evocative than that of Lake. The song is a nice ballad but that does not take off. I Talk to the Wind is incomparably superior. The King Crimson have lost Ian McDonald, fundamental author of the romantic pieces (I Talk To The Wind, The Court of the Crimson King), and his absence is felt: KC can not emulate in this record the epic-romantic pieces of "In the Court of...". Vote: 6,5/7

The album, until now, contains three tracks that bind very little to each other.

Finally arrive a masterpiece: "In the Wake of Poseidon" remember the great epic and romantic songs of the debut album (Epitaph and The Court of KC). It has a wonderful melody but she lacks something to reach the levels of pathos of his models. Vote 8.

Side B. "Peace: a Theme" tries to resume the ranks of the initial speech, bringing the group on romantic and acoustic tones without however much conviction. While in the debut album every song was impressive, monumental and unmissable, here there are already several songs that are mere fillers, completely non-essential. indeed, it becomes difficult to see what are the pieces that constitute the backbone of the disk, so much so that the various introductions praising peace seem to hold together a project that is actually very fragmentary.

"Cat Food" is finally a song that does not refer to the models of the previous album. The free-jazz piano played by Tippet appears for the first time in the production of KC and anticipates what we will hear in Lizard. The song is original and also introduces a sarcastic- ironic-grotesque tone that we will hear in several subsequent songs, and that was not present in the debut album, where everything was serious, dramatic or epic or romantic, but serious. Here the KC show that they are also able to joke, to have fun in a subtle way Vote: 7+

Comes an instrumental track, very long, a mini suite: "The Devil's Triangle". It is an interesting piece, full of anxiety, an omen of terrifying event; it does not follow a precise melody, but more than anything else, atmospheres, with the growing full of tension. The piece as a whole is evocative but does not yet find its way, which will be the paranoic and abrasive vein that we will find in the next production. Vote: 7+

Finally, the record ends by developing the acoustic song on peace that returns here for the third time. But without sowing any great melody (vote 6,5) : in fact it is the good melodies that are missing from this record, which can be said to reach the climax of pathos only in the song that gives the title to the disc.

It is ultimately an interlocutory record, one of the least convincing of the King Crimson, a minor album.

Medium Quality of the songs: 7,21. Vote album: 7,5. Three stars.