LIZARD

Wow, what an album! I guess that this one is KING CRIMSON'S jazziest album and I am sure that it is technically seen even better than IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING, I personally like it better than their debut-album, but that is just a matter of taste, both are excellent and milestones in progressive rock-history.

LIZARD is a mixture of calm and beautiful and very freejazzy, weird and rocky parts. If somebody asked me to describe this CD with only one word, I would chose the word incalculable. And that is the thing that makes this album so wonderful. Your ears always have some work to do, LIZARD is no album you can listen to in the background, you have to spent your whole concentration on the CD because the calm, melodic part which is played right at this moment can transact into a weird, dissonant, exciting part.

KING CRIMSON uses many instruments on this album. Tributary to the classical rock-instrumentation consisting of guitar, drums, bass and keyboards, you will find a lot of work with oboes, trumpets, pianos, saxes, cornets, trombones and flutes. So as you can see you will enjoy much alternation on this CD.

The songs on this CD are all brilliant and experimental if you ask me. "Cirkus" is a very rocky tune with much freejazz in it (and it is my favourite song on this album), "Indoor Games" is a bit more calm and psychedelic, "Happy Family" is again a psychedelic, rocky tune which contains a lot of freejazz, "Lady Of The Dancing Water" is a very beautiful and a sad song with nice flute work and the last track, "Lizard," whichcontains chant of YES member JON ANDERSON, is very beautiful and happy at the beginning and elides into weird more than 20 minutes long experiments which are pure alternation.

LIZARD is no album you can listen to in the background. I just wanted to say that again, if you buy this album you have to engage with the music and maybe you will need some more time to get into this CD, but I assure you that LIZARD is a class of its own and that it contains truly beautiful musical work. I strongly recommend you this album.