Review Summary: Mixed early reception has been lost in a sea of modern praise, but is this mostly in recognition of the breakthrough in prog's historical importance?
Considered to be the marker of the big breakthrough of progressive rock, the album’s opening track starts off with an eerie, creeping atmosphere that expires just before the 30-second-mark, at which point, the band explode into a lengthy and grand riff which is revisited here and there throughout “21st Century Schizoid Man” (TRACK 1/1A, 3.25/5), a seven-and-a-half-minute-long vehicle for avant-garde fusion jazz and hard rock-style instrumentation that is strong strictly because of the quality musicianship. Throughout the piece, saxophonist Ian McDonald and, to a greater extent, drummer Mike Giles deliver dynamite performances, and even though vocalist-bassist Greg Lake does have to resort to using a pick, he trails a complex composition with tonal distinction and a tight, speedy rhythm, while Robert Fripp’s guitarwork and McDonald’s keyboarding really come to life during some flashy solos, so, if you don’t mind the bizarre free jazz finale, there’s plenty of musicianship to be dazzled by throughout the wild ride, but my big issue with the legendary arrangement is that all it is, at its heart, is indulgent jamming, with no real resonance or, for that matter, tonal dynamicity, punctuated only by vocally aggressive verses whose ambiguous thematic value is lost in the surrealism and briefness of the lyric (Save the refrain, “21st century schizoid man!”, that you can just plug into the end of the verses, I am making no abridgement of the lyric when I say, “Cat’s foot, iron claw! Neurosurgeons scream for more, at paranoia’s poison door!” (Verse 1), “Blood rack, barbed wire! Politician’s funeral pyre! Innocents raped with napalm fire!” (Verse 2), and, “Death seed, blind man’s greed! Poet’s starving, children’s bleed! Nothing he’s got he really needs!”). I have grown to really like the song quite a bit since my first somewhat unpleasant listening experience, for it’s quite difficult to not admire the technically proficient musicianship and mostly tightly creative composition tricks showcased throughout this seven-and-a-half-minute-long “La Villa Strangiato” (An exercise in self-indulgence) that I’m sure had some influence on Rush’s much less indulgent “La Villa Strangiato”, and it’s essentially impossible to not admire the sheer originality of this ultimately important track, but if this uneven marriage of experimental hard rock and free jazz fusion is, in fact, bona fide progressive rock, then it’s a stereotypically basic form of the style which applies overblown abstractionism to ultimately inconsequential lyrics, and proves to excessive in its length and indulgent instrumentation, and that’s enough of a challenge to one’s patience, without the harsh nature of the tone that makes it easier to appreciate something like the subsequent track, “I Talk to the Wind” (TRACK 2/2A, 3.25/5), whose genuine sensitivity and whimsical atmosphere truly resonate with a solid balance of heartfelt, folksy simplicity and sophisticated songwriting that compensates for a somewhat pretentious lyric and problematically smooth pacing that challenges one’s patience over the overlong course of just over six minutes. As a testament to the band’s ability to craft effective musical artistry with a vibrant, immersive atmosphere, the piece is too effective to be all that easily shaken by meanderings, but the album’s other sentimental ballad, “Moonchild” (TRACK 4/2A, 2.5/5), is not so lucky, because even though it does manage to cut pretty deep as an even more realized, dreamy prog-folk ballad of about two-and-a-half minutes of clever, mellotron-driven instrumentation and vividly whimsical lyrics, the track runs a little over 12 minutes, making it very decidedly the album’s longest and most difficult track. Following a phase known as “The Dream”, the second phase of this experimental endeavor, “The Illusion”, is an almost ten-minute-long improvisation session that features the instrumentalists simply pecking out minimalist, disjointed nonsense at low volumes, all in the name of stretching an artistic license to the point of breaking your patience and sending an initially solid piece crashing just shy of mediocrity, as the peak in King Crimson’s tedious artistic indulgence.
Most of the album’s tracks have more than a few impressive moments, sometimes to the point of crafting a generally strong piece, but it’s all punctuated by experimental eccentricities that real sprawling progressive rock pieces which took notes from this formula often know better than to fall into, and yet, when King Crimson actually happen upon a singular and worthy vision, you end up with something like “Epitaph” (TRACK 3/3A, 3.5/5), an almost nine-minute-long epic that either compensates for its dragging through solid instrumentation and an engaging, symphonically-charged atmosphere which is uniquely manufactured by McDonald’s mellotron, or earns its length, through a dynamic sense of scale that goes highlighted by a couple soaring crescendos, and through a poetically extensive and articulate lyric by Peter Sinfield that expends much of the whimsy and ambiguity explored through most of this showcase, and focuses more directly on the thematic depth of a vividly drawn portrait on dystopia deriving from the corruption and foolishness of leaders and their people. This epic does have its excesses, all the way down to a finale that lazily reprises the first verse, then culminates with an unfocused instrumental-driven outro that takes nearly a relatively whopping two minutes to fade out, but with its emotional, thematic and musical scale, it does a much better job than most of the tracks in justifying an ambitiously sprawling length, although its formula is fulfilled even more richly in a nine-and-a-half-minute-long epic that best defines this showcase’s artistic integrity, as well as the potential of what is now arguably the pinnacle of modernist musical styles, the conclusive title track “In the Court of the Crimson King” (TRACK 5/2B, 3.75/5), a mostly instrumental suite whose four, progressive folk-style verses tell a whimsical tale of black magic and the horrible corruption of royalty and man himself by way of a poetic lyric that, plain and simple, is brilliant. Penning such lines as, “The rusted chains of prison moons are shattered by the sun. I walk a road, horizons change; the tournament’s begun.”, “The gardener plants an evergreen, whilst trampling on a flower. I chase the wind of a prism ship, to taste the sweet and sour.”, and, “The yellow jester does not play, but gently pulls the strings, and smiles as the puppets dance in the court in the crimson king.”, Sinfield crafts no top-notch ditty, but a masterpiece of modern poetry, rich with impossibly snappy articulation and a flawless rhyme scheme, backed by provocatively subtle themes and a vivid narrative, sold by a jazzy, rocking and classically-charged composition by McDonald that, highlighted by some extensive jam sessions, playful flute solos by McDonald, and, of course, a harmonized chant refrain that may rank among the better vocal riffs in the history of rock music, is itself brought to life by meticulous musicianship which focuses on crafting an enchanting musical experience as much as anything. Nevertheless, one of the main reasons to hear the song is for Giles’ amazing drum performance, whose distinguished tone, dynamic structure and pace, and punctual accuracy and precision bring a lot of drive to a mostly somewhat atmospheric arrangement, and whose subtle cymbal taps are perhaps the perfect way to wrap up an explosive outro… that comes in a little over two minutes before the track is set to end. The instrumental segments throughout this showcase are given their own titles, with “21st Schizoid Man” featuring “Mirrors”, “Epitaph” featuring “March for No Reason” and “Tomorrow and Tomorrow”, and “Moonchild” featuring “The Illusion”, while “In the Court of the Crimson King” features “The Return of the Fire Witch” throughout the midsection, and follows its climax with almost ten seconds of total silence, broken by “The Dance of the Puppets”, which follows a cute little flute solo with one more, one-and-a-half-minute-long jam that is lively and all, but more of the same, with a repetitive structure, and an ending that sends things into a surreal free scale which rises in intensity before finally, well, halting. It just wouldn’t be a King Crimson song if things didn’t get annoyingly weird, and sure, the bulk of the epic can get a little draggy and repetitive, but pulling a cop-out like that really throws off the momentum of an otherwise tight and well-realized triumph in progressive music that, while still outstanding, to be sure, really stood a change of being the perfect album closer there for a while.
It’s kind of hard to put together an album whose true form doesn’t run but five tracks, although some of the material does run together, and it’s kind of hard to notice that with this relatively perfect arrangement of material that is some variation of excessive, so I don’t so much have an issue with the way this showcase is put together, as much as I have an issue with the obviousness of the production’s being taken on by the band’s five members, particularly when it comes to the uneven mixing. At least when it comes to the true versions of the mastering, certain bits and pieces come in clear as a bell for 1969, while other points prove to be disjointed in their mixing and engineering, courtesy of Robin Thompson and Tony Page (The improvisation segment of “Moonchild” is as confused in its volume as it is in its avant-garde nature, and with all my praise of the lyrics to “Epitaph”, Greg Lake’s vocals are sometimes lost in an instrumental noise that particularly brings the drums to prominence), but hey, this may be all on purpose, because all throughout this album, intriguing artistic expression and disconcerting artistic misguidance clash, which isn’t to say that there isn’t a consistency to some sort of pretense, a pride in both the successes and missteps that is aggravating no matter what. “21st Century Schizoid Man”, no matter how strong in its musicianship, feels somewhat excessively indulgent, and “Moonchild” is ruined by a tediously minimalist free improvisation segment that forcibly makes the ballad the longest in a showcase whose momentum is further shaken by awkward occasions of excess in that vein, but all of this overt experimentation reflects an ambition and sophistication in these musicians which, upon finding themselves realized, truly resonate. “I Talk to the Wind” is a moving, dreamy ballad, and “Epitaph” is outstanding in its engrossing scope, brooding atmosphere and dramatically-charged lyrical sophistication, and when this artistic integrity is encompassed with the top-notch musicianship that makes strong the otherwise rather hollow “21st Century Schizoid Man”, you get the title track, “In the Court of the Crimson King”, a lyrical masterpiece and high standard in the progressive musicianship it pioneered. The dark truth of the matter is that this album’s explosively glowing modern reception – which contradicts mixed contemporary responses – is obviously in recognition of this release’s importance, and make no mistake, on a professional level, I give this album a lot of credit for its overwhelming originality at the time, and on a personal level, while I see Yes, a much superior band with much superior material, as the true finalization of the progressive rock style I have come to embrace as the pinnacle of modernist music-making, I would kiss the shoes of King Crimson, singing praises at the top of my lungs for how they changed the game, but they got the movement off to a bit of a rocky start, with little material and uneven production value, all behind excesses in artistic eccentricities. Nevertheless, with patience and revisitation, one is sure to find that there is plenty to embrace in the classic album “In the Court of the Crimson King”, whether it be a solid debut for a solid outfit, or one of the more important checkmarks in the history of rock music.
3/5 (Original) 3.25/5 (Most Reissues)
