IN THE WAKE OF POSEIDON

The Wake of Poseidon is the logically follow-up of In the Court of the Crimson King. The album's structures have a lot in common. The Wake of Poseidon is caught in a theme about peace. "Peace a beginning" opens the record and there is an instrumental "Peace" before "Catfood" opening the second side of the record. The album closes with "Peace - an end". The line-up of The Wake is the same as in The Court; this may be King Crimson's most succesfull line-up with the vocal qualities of Greg Lake and Mel Collins on Saxes and Flute. The lyrics are as poetic as one can imagine by master poet Peter Sinfield.

"Pictures of a City" sounds a lot like the "20th Century Schizoid Man" with comparable jazz-riffs and songstructure, but I must admit that I'm somewhat more impressed by "Pictures of a City". Maybe this song is less original, but it is more complex and has a nice progression with a highly speed ending. "Cadence and Cascade" is a masterfull progressive ballad with a level of atmosphere almost only reached by King Crimson and then especially in this early period of it's existence. The titletrack is a nice ending track of the first side; it's another ballad with great mellotron accompany and some subtle guitarplaying.

The second side offers more new territory by King Crimson. "Catfood" is a superb song with avant-garde piano sessions and some nice lyrics about food of low quality out of supermarkets. The mellotron compositions "The Devils Triangle", "Merday Morn", "Hand of Sceiron" and "Garden of Worm" are related to the progressive electronic scene. These instrumentals have some dark, horrifying passages with marsrhythms which are of high intensity. These sessions belong to the best mellotron compositions ever and makes this Wake of Poseidon very essential to each progressive collection.

This album of King Crimson is my favourite Crimson record. It is slightly better then it's debut in steadyness, having no average passages. It has some great atmospheres and a lot of magic. As is the case with In the Court this is a must-have for all progressive rock fans. Because of the subtle "Peace" theme this record sounds even more professional then KC's debut.