LIZARD

Many of my observations about this album have already been made here - that the album stands alone in the Crimson catalogue. One thing it isn't is a prog rock album more a prog jazz/pop, spiced with rock and classical.

Make no mistake there's some fine material and stunning musicianship on here but I only recently realised why this album doesn't touch me in the same way as my most loved KC albums - ITCOTCK, LTIA and Discipline. My current band is auditioning drummers. As as ex-drummer (who may end up back on the throne) I am acutely aware of the importance of drummers to a band sound. As drummer after drummer came into the studio we couldn't help wondering if there are any drummers around who don't overplay! All these dazzling fills, tricks and pet licks were thrown at us as casually as a teenager throws his dirty washing on the floor - and with similar effect.

Andy McCulloch was and no doubt is a fine drummer with chops I can only dream of having. However, he overplays on much the album. One reviewer earlier noted that he never seems to settle down and it's true. Yes, his almost-constant flicks and fills lend a flexibility to the music but at the expense of clarity; his idea of leaving space for featured vocals or instruments was to play his intricate fiddling more quietly.

High points in music are achieved through contrast and counterpoint but Andy's endless noodling, album mean the first three tracks on the album, all potential KC specials are - featureless is too harsh a word - less than they could have been with Mike Giles or Bill Bruford on the drum stool. To be fair, Andy M's drumming is a natural follow-up from the busy style of Michael G laid out on Groon. However, where Michael G carried on lick a drumming madman in songs and spots where there was space, there are so many instruments on Crikus, Indoor Games and Happy Family that more space was needed. One can only imagine how these songs would have sounded if the other KC drummers were there.

The other weakness, well documented, is Gordon Haskell's vocals. He's not as bad as some make out, but not a strength either. Both Gordon and Andy tend to flatten the songs by reducing the potential highlights by providing less variation and dynamics than would be ideal. The exception is Lizard, especially the Battle of the Glass Tears section, where Andy does some fine and well-conceived tom tom fills that add dynamism (even if he still patters on his snare too much).

The songs. Everyone has already said how creepy Cirkus is, with that evil minor-third riff later referred to on the wonderful Dinosaur track twenty years later, and a hint as to the wicked riffing of their hard core period 1972-4. It's textured and varied and if Mike Giles and Greg Lake were still around this would have been a classic. I would have liked to have heard this live with Boz Burrell on vocals and Ian Wallace on drums.

I first bought this album as a teen after hearing other albums, being especially enamoured with the Larks' Tongues version of KC and I hated Indoor Games when I first heard it. I enjoy the track now, which is rightly grouped with Happy Family as part of the Cat Food aspect of KC's catalogue. Later this style of show 4/4 quirky jazz-spiced, near-funky prog was rocked up a bit in Ladies of the Road (shame about the lyrics) and Easy Money. Some people really hate the cacophony of the group soloing in Happy Family but I see that as the music expressing the the chaos when each member of the happy family (The Beatles?) wandering off in their own direction. Indoor Games and Happy Family both have their Bitches Brew moments. Reviewers tend to knock the effect on Gordon H's voice in Happy Family but I think it was needed or the nursery rhyme flavour of the lyrics and phrasing might have been too bland.

Lizard, its four parts taking up all of side two, is a wonderfully complex and impressive composition that is only for the patient. There are two ways to listen to this one - either with total focus when you have time to spare or as background music. Otherwise it can be dull at times. However, there are some gorgeous musical moments in this one like the climax at the end of part one. Then there is the passage where the classical bolero metamorphoses into a jazz bolero first hinted at by a some sly syncopated seventh chords from Keith Tippet, falls into near chaos which clears to a sweet Mark Charig cornet line.

This album is probably only for those who are die-hard lovers of KC's originality and those whose tastes span jazz, classical, pop and rock.