Rock Reviews

In the Court of the Crimson King

Review

First let me start by saying that the cover art for Court of the Crimson King, I believe, is the best. It's crazy looking and so is this album, especially starting with the only "semi-hit" 21st Century Schizoid Man.

Being a progressive rock album, there's only 5 tracks in total and the loud star quiets down to a low key "I Talk to the Wind". Then one of the more debated songs, "Epitaph", some hate it and some love it. Personally I don't see how you could hate this one, it's just a very good song and it seems like this album could be without major flaw while I start listening to "Moonchild", the fourth track and it seems like it's going to be yet another great song on the album, possibly a very good epic and then the unthinkable happens.

The music slows down and stays like that for a minute or two and I'm wondering when, like some significant type of music will be playing to my ears but it doesn't happen. The biggest disappointment and one of the biggest waste's of a song - Moonchild, for about 2:45 is going good and has so much promise and ends up lasting for another 10 minutes which literally consists of nothingness.....guitar string.....random noise. It goes like that the whole time, sometimes a few random notes but nothing more.

I digress, luckily things pick way back up with the ending track "The Court of the Crimson King" the best of the album.

Overall this is a good intro to progressive rock. I'd say Dark side of the Moon is better to start with as it's more traditional rock in the sense of tracks (10 vs. 5) and track length (here, it's 6-12 minutes vs. 2-7). It was definitely ahead of it's time and it's still impressive now, but I don't think holds up quite as well, when it came out it just had to be incredible. A must have for progressive rock fans.

8.6

Songs