THE CONSTRUKCTION OF LIGHT

To be quite honest, and trying to be fair, King Crimson haven't achieved much since their early days. Sure, the first album was a masterpiece. Although 'In the wake of Poseidon' was very similar to the first album, 'Lizard' and 'Islands' are very interesting albums that kept moving the band forward.

Then comes 'Larks Tongues in Aspic', a complete restructuring of the band had occurred, and there was a new sound for the band that was different again. The band had moved forward light years. This new sound was aggressive guitars and dissonance, juxtaposed with some lighter, ethereal moments. This was in 1973. However, King Crim have more or less stayed the same since then. It's their trademark, long, but not too long song (around the 6 - 11 minute mark) ethereal pieces with mellotrons, or 'soundscapes' aggressive, dissonant guitars, unusual rhythms, silly meaningless lyrics. They do that so well and so often, on almost every album that they have kind of become a parody of themselves. Not that that is a bad thing. What really matters is the music! But after a while, their formula, however complex a formula that may be, wears thin. Sure their 80's albums turned down the aggression, but other than that, not much difference.

But this album, released in 2000, really wears that formula thin. Actually, the previous 'THRAK' was really good, even if it felt like 'Starless and Bible Black' being repeated for the 90's.

I wont talk about the remakes of older songs, actually fraKCture is ok, but the title song, it's just what you expect from KC, you could almost predict it. At least for me, the forced-cynical lyrics are really uninspiring and stupid. They don't have any purpose or any meaning, so why does Belew sing, to hear the sound of his own voice? For the sake of having vocals, out of some kind of obligation?

There are some decent moments, but generally it feels like the same ideas that we had been hearing from them for a while. No emotional value, some spaced-out mellotron, dissonant, heavy guitars, what else?