IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING

Very good record, it would be the quintessential prog album if it wasn't for moonchild and part of the title track. Still a completely essential addition but the album is not perfect so I can't give it five stars.

21st century schizoid man- 10/10: This is easily one of my favorite crimson tracks from any lineup. It has such a hard sound but it still remains incredibly jazzy and progressive feeling. The highlights of this track are the distorted lake vocals and the massive unison soloing with fripp taking a beefy lead over all of it, such an awesome composition.

I Talk to the Wind- 10/10: What a shift from the first song, beautiful clean vocals, simple drum line, beautiful guitar tone, and the lovely flute by Macdonald. The flute is what makes this track great in my opinion, the solo in particular gives me chills every time i hear it.

Epitaph- 10/10: This is the fIrst song where the mellotron is really screaming away. The vocals and lyrics in this song are both superb. Fripps guitar work in this song is acoustic and it goes quite well with the feel of the song, I wish fripp would use acoustic more! I enjoy the basswork in this song as well especially when it takes the lead every now and then with the higher bassy notes. The woodwind solo in the middle of the song is also superb, this song is excellent.

Moonchild- intro 10/10, random improv 4/10: Ugh, the song that most proggers love to hate, the beginning of this song is beautiful, the tone of the guitar, the simple yet quite progressive sounding drumming, the very fantasy oriented lyrics. This song sounds like its going to be great then it becomes a choatic and random improv. Now don't get me wrong, I love improvs especially from crimsons 70s lineup but this improv goes nowhere. It sounds more like random noise, there isn't really a rhythm to the improv.

In the Court of the Crimson King-8/10: The other mellotron dominated track on the record. The section around 2:30- 2:50 is just pure prog in my opinion, awesome part of the song. The beginning of the song gets a bit repetitive but this broken by the superb macdonald solo right in the middle of the song. The second half begins much in the style of the first, mellotron, acoustic guitar etc. Then theres the odd organ solo at around 7:15, Ive never been a fan of this, I would have much rather seen the song end after the section past the flute solo. Good song but a bit repetitive and contains some pointless sections.