DISCIPLINE

King Crimson's reincarnation with "Discipline" showed a totally different band. After the breaking up of King Crimson the mastermind Robert Fripp had collaborated with different artists like David Bowie and had started a solo project and released some records whereby "Exposure" is the only one worth listening to IMO. It was clear by Fripp's solo project that his musical ideas and musical identity had changed over time. Exposure gave a glimpse of what was to expect of Fripp in the "troubled" 80's. Because I have some trouble with calling this music "King Crimson" I will refer to it as Discipline to accentuate the difference in sound. In fact this music is not King Crimson anymore: I don't see anything in it what can refer to their past work; we have to matter with a different band.

The 80's took a grasp on the progressive movement. Some of the prog bands started to play pop and others like Discipline began to play Wave music. The sound of Discipline sounds somewhat between Bowie's Berlin Period, but excluded the use of any key's and made the guitars sound like synthesizers. Where King Crimson had always had great vocalists, Discipline has a mediocre one. His vocals doesn't reach me; he surely shows emotions, but they seems not truly confessed. There is no warmth in the vocals, like there has always been.

The songs on Discipline are build on repetitive synthesizer guitar arpeggio's. These sound a bit like David Bowie on Heroes, but without the distortion and guitarsounding. The drums, although played by the famous Bill Bruford, are not very interesting: they sound very 80's alike. The bass just plays a supportive role and never gets prominent.

The highlight of the record is Indiscipline, which is the only song which has a distorted guitarsound like on King Crimson's latest period. Also the instrumental ballad "The Sheltering Sky" is quiet good and sounds a lot like David Bowie's attempt to sound like krautrock. All the other songs have some good aspects and some troubled aspects. Sometimes the troubled aspects are the vocals like on the repeating of the title "Thela Hun Ginjeet", sometimes it's just the unattractive sound of this band (Elephant Talk, Frame by Frame, Matte Kundasai and Discipline).

I really wanted to like this record since KC is may be my favourite band after all, but I'll stick to the 70's recordings. This record is, although progressive, far less abstract then the previous records. Sometimes progression can lead to degradation, which seems to be the case by Fripp, who had lost his taste for musical beauty. This is only advised for fans of progressive Wave.