THREE OF A PERFECT PAIR

Three of a Perfect Pair is the third eighties studio album from King Crimson and the last from this incarnation of the band. The album continues the style which was started on Discipline from 1981 and developed further on Beat from 1982. I´m a big fan of Discipline while I´m a bit less excited about Beat. Three of a Perfect Pair takes a bit from both albums but never reaces the hights of Discipline.

The music is still based on the complimenting guitar playing from Adrian Belew and only original member Robert Fripp. The rythm section which consists of Bill Bruford ( Yes) on drums and Tony Levin ( Peter Gabriel, Liquied Tension Experiment) on bass makes the lineup and the music complete. It´s actually quite astonishing that King Crimson for the third time in a row had a stable lineup when you think of all the lineup changes in the past. Adrian Belew sounds quite a bit like David Byrne ( Talking Heads) but he fits nicely in King Crimson.

I partially enjoy the album and songs like the first four songs, Three of a Perfect Pair, Model Man, Sleepless and Man With an Open Heart, are all good songs. Then the album turns into new age ambient muzak mode and I´m totally lost. I don´t enjoy neither Nuages (that which passes, passes like clouds) or Industry one bit. On the original LP version at least you had to turn the LP between those two songs and you would know that it was a new song playing. You don´t have that luxury on the CD version. I don´t know when Nuages ends and Industry starts that´s how similar they are in style. The songs are not annoying as such but they are totally indifferent. The album continues with Dig Me and No Warning which are mediocre at best and then the good ending song Larks' tongues in aspic part III.

The musicianship is excellent but I didn´t expect less from accomplished musicians like these.

The productions is typical for the eighties, even though King Crimson is no typical eighties band.

I´m not very impressed with Three of a Perfect Pair and even Beat which I wasn´t really happy about beats this one. I´m on the verge of giving Three of a Perfect Pair 2 stars but the quality is too high afterall and reluctantly I´ll give it 3 small stars. There are definitely some good songs here but there are also some really useless ones that are best ignored. I can only recommend that you purchase Discipline if you are curious about eighties King Crimson before purchasing both Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair.