BEAT

After the masterpiece album Discipline, the King Crimson line up of Belew/Bruford/Levin/Fripp returned to the studio and created another effort. This one, however, seems to pull the same thing as ITWOP pulled against ITCOTCK in that this album is structured and sounds very similar to its predecessor).

With this one, there is a lot more of an electronic presence to their music in that Bill Bruford's percussion has become very synth oriented. The riffing is impeccable, and overall it has the same quality of Discipline, but I feel I've heard them all before. Belew's lyrics in this one are a lot more straightforward and lack that abstractness of the last album. But what they lost in abstractness, they gained in commercial approach. With such songs as Heartbeat and Waiting Man, King Crimson seemed to be going into a more poppy approach, but the music was still none the less amazing. Stand out tracks are Neal and Jack and Me, Waiting Man, Heartbeat, and Satori in Tangier, which comprises the first half of the album. Neal and Jack and Me has lyrics that are remnicient of Beat poets and has some great riffs and percussion, as well as a great bass line from Levin. Heartbeat begins with a great riff, and features some emotional vocals from Belew. Waiting Man is easily the best song on the album with a great synth percussion intro (extended and played in duet form live from Bruford and Belew) and some great vocals and lyrics from Belew. Satori in Tangier is a Tony Levin show piece, beginning with some shy stick swells and then turns into an aggressive stick beat that is overlayed by the great guitar and drum interplay.

Overall, the King Crimson "pop" album is still good in craft, but it feels too similar to Discipline and thus it gets a less of a score because of the creative discrepancy. 3/5.