BEAT

King Crimson

Eclectic Prog

3.10 | 1442 ratings

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Chaser

It took me many years to appreciate how good Beat actually is.

I first listened to this album as a teenager. I was not musically experienced enough to appreciate it at that time. I thought it was mediocre and I put it away in my record collection to gather dust for many years.

Maybe twenty years later I began to play this album once again, and, by that time, I had gained enough musical maturity to appreciate it in a way that I couldn't before.

Of the 1980's trilogy of albums Discipline is unquestionably the strongest album, but I regard Beat as the second best of the three, followed by Three of a Perfect Pair.

The musicianship, as always on King Crimson albums, is superb, and all of the musicians really shine on this album.

Bruford shows his incredible range of percussive talent across the varying tracks on the album, from the freeform style of Requiem, to the delicate percussion on Two Hands, to the furious drumming on Neurotica.

Fripp and his Frippertronics and guitar work are exemplary, especially on the outstanding and technically complex "Sartori in Tangier", and also (with Belew) in the great use of dissonance on "The Howler".

Belew's vocals are very original for the time, especially on "Neurotica" where he delivers the vocal in a rap style, with lyrics throughout the album that hark back to the beat writers of the 1950's and 1960's.

The best track on the album is "Sartori in Tangier" with it's creative guitar and organ work, but many of the other tracks are excellent, including "Requiem", and I also very much like "Waiting Man" and "Neurotica".

Some of the tracks are not as strong, notably the opening two tracks, but all tracks are good, and whilst this is not a five star album, I would score it 3.64 and round it up to four stars.

Chaser | 4/5 | 2018-8-15

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