IN THE WAKE OF POSEIDON

A good attempt at a followup to their great debut, though it falls short in many ways. The first half of the album reminisces over some of the ideas used in their debut. After Peace - a Theme the album segues into a more experimental vein, a taste of what we will hear in Lizard.

Pictures of a City's use of horns and Lake's bolder vocals reminds me of a less frenzied version of 21st Century Schizoid Man. It is a good track, but is not as wild or progressive as Schizoid Man. 8 minutes is also rather long for this track, as the band starts noodling around the halfway point. This isn't a pointless drawback like the second half of Moonchild, there is structure for these few minutes, but it is experimentation that I don't find to be that interesting. This builds up for the remainder of the track until it explodes at the end, similar again to the end of Schizoid Man.

Cadence and Cascade is likely my favorite track off the album. This track's mellow beauty and simplicity reminds me of a less flute based I Talk to the Wind, though again not as good as its predecessor. Still, I really do like this track from beginning to end and in my opinion is a classic KC track.

In the Wake of Poseidon is a mellotron heavy track that reminds me of the In the Court... track off the debut. Still not quite as good as In the Court..., but about as strong as Cadence and Cascade. All in all a good track.

The album changes direction with Cat Food, a track that reminds me more of the Lizard album than the debut. Though once again it fails to rival anything on the great Lizard either. It is a decent and original track, but nothing really stands out.

The Devil's Triangle is certainly one of the much more interesting KC tracks. It starts out rather mellow but menacing at the same time, layer of layer of dark instrumentation and steady drumming. This very slowly and gradually builds up over the course of the song. A bit more than halfway through the song this completely dies out, only to return a minute later even faster and scarier than before. The buildup continues until the final stretch of the song, where the instruments start to branch out in different musical directions. Likely one of the least accessible KC tracks, but it still has something to offer. I view it to be more of an interesting track than a musical accomplishment.

I'd recommend this to KC fans who are able to appreciate the difficult Lizard album as well as the debut. Though it is not an essential album to those who aren't big KC fans.