IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING

I frequently spent hours walking the aisles at music stores, and this album cover would scream at me as I browsed. I thought if I ignored it, it would go away and i could search in piece. I did this for years, until the early Aughts when I was in college, and I finally gave in to that terribly paranoid expression, and bought the 30th-anniversary remaster of this sucker on compact disc.

The opener blew my brain apart immediately, but the rest of the album left me confused for the better part of a day. But after the second listen, it struck me: this was a special recording, a crystalline marker of the trajectory rock music would take for the next half decade or so into the 70s.

The "21st-Century Schizoid Man" intro ("wind session") breathes eerie science fiction before exploding with unprecedented ferocity. What follows is one of the most influential and ahead-of-its time tracks ever written.

The segue between the first two tracks always entertains, gets a chortled grunt from new listeners. "I Talk to the Wind" is charming, a leftover from Giles, Giles & Fripp.

The proto-doom "Epitaph" is the album's literal center piece, and is as beautiful as it is gut-wrenching: cathartic, indulgent, and heavy in it's own right. Pete Sinfield's lyrics carry an antiwar message, a poignant impressionist word painting delivered in an appropriately observational tone.

"Moonchild" is a brilliant tasty little folktune, contrasted by its long coda. This post-song noodling garners the most negative criticism. While I understand why, its ambience and sparsity is compelling if you have the patience.

The epic title track is an aural city of marble inundated by piss-warm oceans, now resurfaced. A false ending followed by a humorous guignol-esque interpolation precedes one final jam on the main theme.

The song and album ends with a cacophonous swell, halted abruptly, as if the band were squashed by Monty Python's giant foot; however the effect is badass and memorable rather than slapstick

The result is an arcanely English, neatly bundled postmodern masterpiece, compressed to high heaven, and surrounded by mellotrons. This mature, gutsy and convincing slice of art rock is impressively performed by very young musicians whom had very little experience playing together, yet were able to tap into a creative wellspring that would make most veteran groups green with envy.

Like it or not, this is the quintessential English progressive rock album, and a milestone for the genre.

One of the greatest debut albums of all time.

5 songs, 5 stars.