IN THE WAKE OF POSEIDON

King Crimson's second album is very much like the first. There are new members hear, and some old ones are replaced. It's structured very much like the first, except for the Peace themes coming in at the beginning, middle, and finally completing at the end. It's an interesting structure, but the rest of the album is a little too much like the first. Pictures of a City is similar to Schizoid Man in many ways. Cadence and Cascade (the weakest song on the album), seems to fill I Talk to the Wind's spot, and In the Wake of Poseidon fills Epitaphs spot. Unfortunately, none of these songs are as good as their predecessors, still really good, but not as good. Side two opens with the most original track on the album, Cat Food, a jazzy number reminiscent of Steely Dan. The Devil's Triangle is the experimental track. It is actually adapted from Gustav Holst's Mars. It starts off extremely quiet, forcing you to turn up the volume, but gradually gets louder and more chaotic. King Crimson, in their first album, has a very dark and unsettling sound to it, and this one simply gets black at this point. It's not the blackest King Crimson has ever gotten (in fact they seem to get blacker as time goes on), but it is certainly the blackest point on this album. This is definitely the best track on the album, but can be very unlistenable at times. You have to be in a certain mood to experience this. When the final part of Peace comes in, it is both welcome and beautiful after the opening of the depths of hell that was the Devil's Triangle.