Comments for King Crimson, Lizard

Side 1 builds on the ominous-doom-gloom heavy mellotron sound of "Poseidon" & the folk-rock bent of "Court of" - it's great conceptually but marred by some horribly busy drumming. Side 2, with a guest vocal by John Anderson (of Yes) is quite good though perhaps a bit lengthy & stretched (like the classical music it emulates). Flawed but with very impressive pieces & concepts.

On the contrary, I think that this is one of their best releases. Side I is highlighted by the ominous Cirkus, but the rest of the side, while interesting, is not nearly as classic. However, Side II, King Crimson's only side-long-song, Lizards, is wholly classic. It may be long, but the length contains a great deal of great playing from the horn section and all others involved. Another highlight of this album is Keith Tippet's piano.

much more experimental than their 2nd album. the sax and horn get a little obtrusive (and downright annoying) in some parts of "lizard", but in other parts of "lizard" the music is kc at its most beautiful. "indoor games" and "happy family" are other highlights (except for the weirdly distorted vocals on "happy family").

Lyrically, the entire album is excellently constructed. Peter Sinfield''s words are poignant in Cirkus and Lizard, beautiful in Lady of the Dancing Water, and hilarious in Indoor Games and Happy Family. Instrumentally, Fripp is as amazing as usual: be it insanely intricate accoustic guitar, overpowering distorted electric or foreboding mellotron, the horns are superb and the drums are at times suitably frenetic, though I didn''t know there was such thing as too much percussion. Lizzard continued the quality progressiveness from the first albums which eventually developed into the similarly "classical music emulating" / rock ''n roll hybrid music which makes King Crimson one of the Superior acts of the last three decades.