ISLANDS

This album is beautiful. Sad, even depressing, but beautiful. No hard riffs, no agressive beat changes, perhaps the less skilled album of the early days, but beautiful. The musicianship is far from their peak, singer and bassist Boz Burrell is not Wetton or Lake, Fripp's guitar is not as dinamic and protagonist as on any other release, because he seemed to take a more atmospheric direction. But despite all that, this album is......... beautiful!!!

Complexity doesn't prevent emotions, as simplicity doesn't prevent efficiency. This album is less complex, but also less accesible. I think that's the reason why it uses to be underrated. The songs are slowly elaborated and require a lot of pacience by the listener. Because of that, people generally find this album quite boring. But don't get scared; just turn on your chimney, get a cigarrete, a glass of wine and a comfortable armchair, and put this album in your CD player... Pay attention to it, fall in love with it and (I hate to sound cheesy:) let your tears fall down.

The experimental side of King Crimson was also onmipresent in every album, but here is at their peak, mostly on the first side. 'Formentera Lady' starts the album slowly and very atmospheric, beginning with vocals and string bass and deriving into an interlude more dinamic and melodic. The second half of the song is mainly driven by weird melodies by soprano Paulina Lucas, until the brasses come up at the end of the song and go on in 'Sailor's Tale', which is a prolongation of the track, but louder. 'The Letters' closes the first side keeping that mindblowing and warm atmosphere, but being Boz Burrell's vocals way more protagonist. In these last moments of the first side maybe you can think "this album is smooth and blaaaaaand", but just listen to the second side.

The fourth track is 'Ladies on the Road', perhaps the most beloved by fans. It has nice bass at the beggining and some Beatle-esque harmonies, then falling into a chorus. The next number is one of my all-time fave Crimson pieces, the beautiful 'Song of the Gulls'. No vocals here, just orchestration and string arrangements. Slow-paced and a simple but lovely melody. Always put me sad, but I love it anyway.

The closing track is a long epic, the longest number of the song. It's also atmospheric, but now with fine piano and Boz' voice. The chords are the same all along the song; Boz stops singing and a mellotron and a trumpet begin to appear subtlely, till the end. A very sad track too, but quite nice. Maybe goes a bit long, but just a minimal bit. A warm album in general, and yeah, fairly bland, but in the good sense ;)

Highly recommended for progheads and ESSENTIAL for KC's fans. Before stop writing this review, I'm gonna consider a couple of additional points: this neglected masterpiece was sandwiched by other two brilliant records more popular than this, but don't be fooled about the musical quality founded on this stuff. Don't dismiss it. And second, this was my first experience with this marvelous band, so you can consider it, since my rating and my words don't share the majority's opinion about this album. But that's it; I love this bunch of songs and see no important differences of musical perfection between this and ITCOTCK or Red. Five stars, from both personal and objetive point of view.

Cosick.