IN THE WAKE OF POSEIDON

Despite the resemblance of the debut, "In The Wake Of Poseidon" is another gem in King Crimson's discography.

King Crimson's follow up to ITCOTKC is s famous example in music of how some sophomore LP attempt to recreate the formula of the first album. Concerning this, not everyone agrees, but it seems undeniable as you listen to it. "In The Wake Of Poseidon" is a quite enjoyable experience nevertheless, certainly it remains one of the gems of the band.

Music wise, the album feels a little more adventurous, I must say, than the debut. Or better, it has definitely a different structure, which of course is something to recognize for this album, even when comparing it to the debut. However strictly musically speaking some ideas are repeated noticeably, like the strong, powerful, distorted,jazzy song, or the melancholic mellotron driven song, or the precious flute ballad. These three type of songs can be found in both albums, unfortunately. The first half of "In The Wake Of Poseidon", thus, feels like nothing new. However, the second half is much more avant-garde, quirky, and even dark at times. The second half is definitely a new type of experiment for King Crimson, luckily.

The first half of the album consists of the "21st Century Schizoid Man" imitation "Pictures Of A City", which in itself isn't a bad track at all, it actually has a great melody and fantastic musicianship, however moments are just too similar to the above mentioned track. The same can be said with "Cadence And Cascade" and the title track, both reminiscent of "I Talk To The Wind" for the first and "Epitah" for the latter, however, for both of the new tracks I feel they are not at all as powerful and effective as the original ones. The album does have a reoccurring theme, "Peace", a brief track that appears as an intro, halftime, and outro of the album. It is pleasant to hear, but I like it only because it is one of the elements for King Crimson that is completely new. The second half features the original side: "Cat Food" is an almost noisy and cacophonous piece, wild and strange, with a great piano performance and great, harsh vocals by Greg Lake. But then comes the real twist: the eleven minute "The Devil's Triangle", a menacing sounding mellotron dominating half of it, while the other half is an honest, yet tense avant-garde composition where all the instruments seemed almost smashed into each other to make the resulting music.

A definite must for any Crimson fan despite the resemblance of ITCOTCK. A certainly important album for the band, that showed that they can also move towards new horizons, like they will do more and more widely on following efforts.

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