THREE OF A PERFECT PAIR

Final album of the eighties Crimson trilogy. The lnie-up is style the same and the musical direction isn't altered that much. However, after having released an almost totally pop album, King Crimson decided to make an album to please both their new wave dance fans and their old time prog-experimental fans. The album is clearly divided into two distinct sides. Side A is made up of a compilation of pop songs in the same vein of their last 2 albums. Side B is composed of more weird and classic King Crimson stuff.

Side A's opener, Three of a Perfect Pair, is a catchy song that tells a really funny story about a man who's in love with a schizophrenic girl. I'll go over this side fast because the songs are good but again too rooted in pop for my tastes. Model Man to Man with an open Heart are all pretty catchy danceable songs. Sleepless especially is nothing but dance music.

Nuages (That which passes like clouds) is reminiscent of The Sheltering Sky. The electronic drumming and atmospheric guitars conrtibutes to the ressemblance. Industry is the intro to the weird bunch of songs of the album as Belew himself names them. Industry is not bad but it sounds repetitive after a while. Dig me is more interesting. The lyrics are pretty weird and the vocals effects are freaky. The chorus is really different from the rest of the song. Great song. No Warning is a really cool instrumental in the same vein as the two songs preceding it. Again, it has a freaky aura around it. The drumming is incredible in this number. It's a perfect introduction to... what the hell? They wrote a song and they dared to name it Lark's tongues in aspic part 3?!? Sacrilege! It's better be awesome (That's your usual initial reaction). The track raises up to the expectations. It continues in the same style that the first two parts have developped. The riffing guitar and the heavy drumming are excellent. It's by far the best track of the album.

That said, this album is fairly disappointing but it does contain some excellent tracks. Some tracks are forgettable though. Again, I have to say that this album is strongly enjoyable when you just wanna have fun listening to groovy music but that it lacks in the prog field. 3 stars for this effort.

-Bern