LIZARD

From the disturbed "Cirkus (including Entry of the Chameleons)" with Gordon Haskell's pained singing, the sordid mellotron contrasted with Robert Fripp's crystalline acoustic guitars and Mel Collins' wandering saxophone, the album would not let go of that experimental and daring character characteristic of the avant-garde and unconventional Fripp and his alter ego King Crimson. Like the complex "Indoor Games" and "Happy Family", pieces that rely on jazz structures as a common thread that constantly challenge with bewildering and overwhelming developments, supported by Andy McCulloch's raw drumming and Collins' sax and flute interactions.

After so much instrumental insanity, a little sanity appears with the gentle "Lady of the Dancing Water" and Collins' delicate flutes accompanying Haskell's serene singing, and also with the opening fragment of the "Lizard" suite, "Prince Rupert Awakes", performed by guest Jon Anderson over Keith Tippet's soothing piano and Fripp's lingering mellotron. One of the best on the album.

And the eponymous title piece, "Lizard", is a suite that brings together all the ingredients of the unmistakable Crimsonian sound: a metaphorical passage from the warrior story of Prince Rupert, a prominent figure of the colonial 17th century, gives way to a bipolar tussle between oboes, saxophones, trombones and mellotrons from "Bolero - The Peacock's Tale", with McCulloch's timid drum roll in the background, through the tripartite and unhinged "The Battle of the Glass Tears", which is crowned by a sustained guitar solo from Fripp, to the circus-like "Big Top", a short, haunting and gloomy epilogue that brings the extended piece and the album to a close.

Like Greg Lake and the Giles brothers after "In the Wake of Poseidon", newcomers Haskell and Cullock also left the band after "Lizard", leaving it without a singer, bassist and drummer at the same time. Incoming and outgoing musicians became a constant dynamic in the daunting life of King Crimson.

3.5/4 stars

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