IN THE WAKE OF POSEIDON

First of all it's difficult to express a disinterested opinion about this album, because it belongs to a circumstantiated group of easier works which can be as much strident as pleasant at the end. So, if you compare it to their usual experimental and "standardized" art rock, you can find some defects inside; nevertheless here you can listen to the most versatile K.C: in fact They are able to meet the exigencies of the common listener and the tastes from the experienced musicians as well. Secondly I can understand the choice of the songs: as a matter of fact their typical "brainy" style (think of "Lark's Tongue in Aspic" or "Starless & Bible Black"), nowadays resembling the post rock genre, has been recently avoided by the media and that's probably the reason for which They tried to reach a certain compromise since the issue of their 2nd "derivative" album. Therefore, by thinking of their debut album, then considering some other works like "Island", "Lizard" and in a few circumstances even the complex "Red", I begin appreciating such a diverse kind of music. Each of them are often easy to get, along with this "In the Wake of Poseidon" and it's a surprise for me!!

Nevertheless We all know the destiny of such a controversial band like K.C.: so many times (still recently) They have changed their line-up, however seldom emulating their best ideas produced in the early seventies and moreover with uneven or unsatisfactory results. So probably They will be always kept away from the "stream", even though you could reply that in the early eighties there was a radical change regarding their music ideas. The compositions were often intricate and inspiring, also during the development of their accessible rhythmical songs (often resembling the style of Talking Heads!!) and the feedback of the market was guaranteed...well it's true, but such a different style was better fitted into the Electronic New Wave genre, successfully embraced by a wider crowd of fans and soon replaced by their most complex style, often uneasy to take. At the end, coming back to the songs of "In the Wake of Poseidon",like "Cadence and Cascade" or for instance the title track ( both quite remarkably arranged), were a coherent effort within an uneven contest. If you regard of their successful "milestone" entitled "In the Court of." and the way this latter album was almost "duplicated" once again, you can remain disappointed: there is a number of derivative songs indeed, all along the duration of their second album, except on a few harmonic passages at the guitar, but the sense of melody is a bit present anyway. Moreover, talking about the other episodes, I find a certain unevenness inside their main passages, sometimes being quite unnecessary (above all the fragment "Piece-a beginning" ) but after all, as already foreseen before, there wasn't a different purpose here. In fact you can't appreciate any strange harmonization or a new exploration concerning the whole range of music colours;nevertheless by regarding of all these reasons and therefore thinking of their early inspiring days, I point out that their intention was clear from the artistic point of view. In this manner the unique trouble was connected to such an extraordinary success brought about their debut album, which obliged Fripp & C. to be always "aligned" to the commercial exigencies of that time, without exaggerating their intricate harmonic solutions (especially if you consider the stirring atonal scales - an imprinting by Fripp -whose lack could be unsatisfactory.).But never mind, cause after all their creativity was developed and also better appreciated afterwards, when They chose a different "strategy"; so in spite of a certain sense of tiredness, which dramatically began to emerge in the recent gigs of the nineties, the accessible K.C. of "In the Wake of Poseidon" were not bad and you could even give this album another half star at least!