STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK

I guess it's time a ante up and write a review for this album. Excellent musicianship. Experimental song constructs. Horrible singing voice and lyrics. "The Great Deceiver" God awful vocal/lyrics. A repellant song. (6/10). "Lament" Has a timeless quality to it's opening that I like--the multi-voiced vocal works. Then it turns instrumental, falls apart, and resorts to becoming a vehicle for the ear-grating vocals of John Wetton. Hate that fuzzy guitar, too! Rated up for musicianship. (7.5/10) "We'll Let You Know" Does the world really need another "Moonchild"? or a sound check/warmup exercise committed to tape? (6/10) "The Night Watch" opens like a classical orchestra warming up. Then moves into a "Goodnight, Irene"-type of crooner (without the singing, thank God). But then, au secours! JW appears in a MOODY BLUES-type voice. Pleasant enough. (8.25/10) "Trio" starts as "uno"--one Larks Ascending-like viola, then Mellotron flute, and then bass. Okay. So David Cross can play folk-classical. And Sir Robert can handle a 'tron. JW cannot. Again, why try to fake me with this (8.25/10). "Mincer" is eerie in a soundtrack way, but is too dynamic and too poorly engineered to ever be used as such--which makes sense since it was a recording of a live concert improv. Still, this is my favorite song on the album so far. I love hearing Fripp go spastic on his guit-box. (8.5/10) "Starless and Bible Black" more experimental sound/noise improv. How appropriate that it was recorded live in Amsterdam (where all kinds of wild and experimental things were legal). At 4:30 we finally get the rudimentary start of a song. It gradually evolves into quite a nice song structure, with Bruford and Wetton giving the band something inspiring to continue improving over. Sounds a little like the recent Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock experimentations. Why people rave so much about Jamie Muir, I don't know. Give me a stage full of things to heat or beat and I, too, could come up with some interesting accents. (16.5/20) "Fracture" one of those jams in which KC produce one of their menacing sounds. Magma taken darker. Lots of space in which to show off subtleties and Jamie Muir's percussion instincts. The jams toward the end are great--finally the band is playing together in a weave than can be construed as a "song". (17.5/20)