LARKS' TONGUES IN ASPIC

As you might have already noticed if you have read some previous reviews, KC is not my favourite band. What I like the most with KC is their symphonic side. Do you remember ITCOTCK ? I have always had a hard time in getting into their jazz-rock or experimental effort. I'm trying though but this seems to be hopeless...

Still, I believe that if reviewers only post reviews of their beloved bands and albums, all of them will reach a five star rating on this site, and this is not the purpose, right ? My choice was to review bands (almost) all the way through their career (even poor albums). I will go on like this with lots of other bands and probably end up with 3 or 4,000 reviews on this site, at least. So, here we go...

Wetton is in charge on the bass and on the lead vocals whereas Bruford is on the drums. Will this change KC sound and inspiration ?

The title track (part one) is purely experimental, almost jam session oriented. I cannot find a single second of this track interesting : a marimba session to start (almost three minutes), some cacophonic minutes to follow. The song keeps up with this hectic tempo till the end. If you have read my intro, is then almost normal that "Book of Saturday" sounds almost like a dream to my ears. Just a pity it is so short a track. Nice and melodious.

"Exiles" is another song I can live with : although the intro sounds quite weird (for about two minutes), it turns into an interesting violin playing, nice and romantic melody. It is the matching piece to "Talk To The Wind" from ITCOTCK : the violin replacing the flute. Very nice KC moment I must say. This type of thraks is keeping my interest in this band. I guess most of their fans would not really be found of these type of songs, but I just love it.

"Easy Money" is something different. A bizarre track I must say : noisy for half of it, almost good for the other half. All the complexity of KC to non die-hard fan (like myself) is there. "The Talking Drum" is another experimental and dull track. The "sound" is almost unnoticeable during the first half unless you turn your volume on at full capacity (it was also the case for "Moonchild" and globally for "Islands" by the way). I must admit that the last three minutes during which the beat catches up with good violin and ryhtmic section are quite interesting.

Part two of "Aspic" is substantially better than the Part I. At least it is more structured and can be called a song. The hypnotic riff works very well. It is my fave here. I would rate this effort with two stars although five out of ten would probably better reflect my opinion. This is really for KC fans only.