THE CONSTRUKCTION OF LIGHT

Until recently The ConstruKction of Light was the only King Crimson studio album that I had not yet heard, and until now the only one that I had not rated. Compared to its predecessor THRAK from 1995 and its successor The Power To Believe from 2003, this 2000 album is clearly a less fulfilling affair overall. Yet, a few of the tracks are similar in both quality and style to what can be found on those two albums. Personally, I am not very fond of the post-1970's King Crimson output but I can appreciate some of the material from this period (particularly the instrumental side since I never much liked Adrian Belew's vocal style or his lyrics for that matter). Another noteworthy things is that with this album Robert Fripp is the sole connection to the classic era of the band as Bill Bruford is no longer involved. However, in my view the relation to the spirit of classic King Crimson was tenuous already with Discipline in the early 80's.

The album opens with ProzaKc Blues which is as the title indicated a Blues based number. And as if that wasn't bad enough, it also has awful vocals! They redeem themselves with the next few tracks beginning with the title track which is very much in the style of earlier Belew-era songs. Into The Frying Pan is also a rather decent number and so is Frakctured which refers back to 1974's Fracture. The three Larks' Tongues in Aspic parts obviously also refer to an earlier work. In between these two backward-looking numbers we get The World's My Oyster Soup Kitchen Floor Wax Museum which pretty much summarizes the very worst aspects of Adrian Belew. His talk-like singing and the utterly incoherent lyrics is something I never understood the value of since I first was subjected to the abomination that is Elephant Talk on Discipline.

Overall, a rather mixed bag this one with some okey tracks and some misguided experiments. Perhaps not the band's worst album, but certainly not among the better ones.

Share this KING CRIMSON review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to SouthSideoftheSky
• Report this review (#1300003)
• Buy KING CRIMSON music online with PA partners
• Show all KING CRIMSON MP3/Stream
• Go to KING CRIMSON page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to The ConstruKction of Light page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for KING CRIMSON related discussions