LIZARD

Cirkus 5 A nice, atmospheric number with good vocals from Gordon Haskell (he sounds very close to Peter Gabriel on this one), fine connection between the soft and the heavy passages. Nice mellotron work, good rhytm section, fabulous acoustic guitar from Fripp. Really dramatic and complex. Mell Collins adds some neat jazzy sax in here, too. A really atmospheric piece. Indoor games 5 Excellent drumming and vocals here again. Fripp plays some marvelous guitar on here again (both acoustic and electric) and gets a typically unorthodox but great guitar solo. Especially fine is his dueling with Mel Collins on saxophone. The song has also a lot of mellotron and keyboards added to the sound. Overal a very fine piece. Happy family 2 Guitar heavy, as well as dissonant electric piano from Keith Tippet that adds to the number´s charm.However not that much melody and too chaotic without atmosphere for my tastes. Lady of the dancing water 5 Starting off with flute, typical Crimson acoustic ballad. Quiet, but very seductive. Great vocals from Gordon Haskell. The lizard 5 A side long suite. The track starts off with a lovely melody and vocals from Ion Anderson. Fripp plays some wonderful guitar as well. The track then gets a wonderful majestic piano and melotron part, followed with marvelous jazzy saxophone playing, after which the atmospheric part with heavy use of melotron as well as trumpet comes in. After quiet passgae with Haskell singing, the drums join in. Haskell plays some neat basslines on here and when the saxophone joins in, the sound gets simillar to 21st century schizoid man. After that a more meditative part comes again, with a marvelous guitar solo from Fripp and the song ends on a typically "weird" and improvisational note. A marvelos number.

OVERALL :4.5 stars= average of 5 STARS

ESSENTIAL: a masterpiece of progressive music