BEAT

King Crimson

Eclectic Prog

3.10 | 1442 ratings

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Walkscore

Too short, too rushed, but some excellent Adrian Belew songs.

Crimson toured around their Discipline album, but hadn't written enough tunes for a full album by the time they entered the studio to record Beat. So, they wrote tunes in the studio, including some improvisations. The result is more mixed than Discipline, which is excellent all the way through. On Beat, it is Adrian Belew's song-writing skills the save the day. He is the one who essentially wrote the excellent hit single, Heartbeat, one of the only Crimson tunes to ever cross-over into the radio-friendly pop world. It is Belew's excellent vocals and lyrics that make 'Waiting Man', 'Neal and Jack and Me', 'Nerotica' and 'The Howler' worth repeated listens. And Belew's 'Two Hands' is simply beautiful music. The improvs, and contributions of the rest of the band, meanwhile, stand in the shadow of Belew's contributions. 'Sartori in Tangier', and improv, is the weakest track on the album, while 'Requiem' is better but still not at the same level as Belew's wonderful tunes. Even with the improvs, this is one of the shortest Crimson albums. Clearly, this one was too rushed - the band should have taken their time to come up with the tunes that would follow-up Discipline. Because Belew is the one to step up to save the album, this sounds more like an Adrian Belew album, or 'Adrian Belew's Crimson', or something. There is nothing quite as good as 'Indiscipline' or 'Discipline' here. Instead, this album shows Adrian Belew as the most creative force in this version of the band at this time. I give this album 8.2 out of 10 on my 10-point scale, which translates to 4 PA stars.

Walkscore | 4/5 | 2017-2-22

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