THRAK

King Crimson's first full album after their longest hiatus to date was refreshing at the time. Legend has it that after regrouping with the quartet that would continue into the new millenium (Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Trey Gunn and Pat Mastelotto), the band was having a problem coming up with songs worthy of the King Crimson moniker. Enter Bill Bruford and Tony Levin, and the double trio was born. With two guitarists, two bass players and two drummers, they created an album much better than the previous KC quartet ever released.

Nearly gone are the layered finger exercises that wore thin after one album. The band had gotten it's bombast back. The best songs are the ones with the onomatopoeiaic titles. While retaining a modern sound, they are also a throwback to the power of the original Larks' Tongues songs and the Red album. And this is a very good thing.

Even most of the vocal based songs are inventive, especially the Beatles-esque Dinosaur (belew doing Lennon, where he does McCartney in Walking On Air) and the heavy funky Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream. Of course there is still the drab One Time, but I guess Belew needs to get these out of his system.

I wonder if the aforementioned Dinosaur is a not to Fripp's ridiculous declarations of the seventies, where he pigeonholed the entire prog genre. Welcome back to the fold, Bob.