IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING

I feel that, while this remains essential, for reasons I will cover in a second, it is one of King Crimson's worst pre-90s albums. It feels very underwhelming, crashing in with ferocious metal and petering out with 4 soft numbers in succession. While I enjoy all of the tracks on this album, It feels incomplete.

That said, this remains an essential progressive rock release, for 3 main reasons: 1) King Crimson were one of the all-time greats of the genre, 2) This includes 21st Century Schizoid Man, for chrissake, 3) This truly is, inarguably, a landmark recording as one of the first all-out prog albums without all of the psychedelic trappings common among most proto- prog releases.