IN THE WAKE OF POSEIDON

We've all heard the story. After releasing In The Court Of The Crimson King, the band imploded (Robert Fripp must have been a joy to work with even back then). And Fripp gathered the remnants of the band and put together something of a clone of the first album.

Pictures Of A City is structurally and tonally nearly identical to 20st Century Schizoid Man. Cadence And Cascade sounds like an imitation of I Talk To The Wind. And In The Wake Of Poseidon is embarassingly similar to Epitaph.

That leaves Cat Food a great little song, with superbly frenetic piano work by Keith Tippett, and The Devil's Triangle, Crimson's nice reworking of Gustav Holst's Mars, Bringer Of War from The Planets. The latter was also helped immensely by Tippett's piano work.

Oh, and there are those little, forgettable Peace interludes strewn throughout the album. Is that supposed to be ironic? On an album named for the crimson king?

Anyway, had this album come first, I would have rated it much higher. But since half the material just doesn't sound original, I give it three stars.