King Crimson
Earthbound

Release Date: 1972 | Tracklist

In all the time spent listening to music, and albums of the progressive rock sub-genre, there’s been an infinite amount of recordings to go through. Many of them are pretty damn good, and are lasting proof of how innovative these groups could be. There have also been albums that show a far more pretentious side to the artists themselves. In order to get to the good stuff, you must stumble upon a dud. Every prog-head has had a dud, whether it is Love Beach or Tormato, there’s always going to be an album that you’ll try to like, but it never clicks.

One of these albums is Earthbound, which until the late 1990’s, was the only live (official) document of the short-lived “Islands”-era line-up, featuring the late Boz Burrell and Ian Wallace, along with saxist Mel Collins. The album is infamous for its extremely-poor audio quality, a result of the album being hastily picked by Robert Fripp from the collection of tapes gathered over the group’s final U.S. tour that winter. On Earthbound, there are few things to be familiar with, as the only recognizable recordings include: 21st Schizoid Man, The Sailor’s Tale, and Groon. Everything else, however, are what Fripp calls “jams”, and not actual “improvs”, for this particular incarnation of King Crimson were more accustomed to blues-based jams and not the meticulous improvisations that was somewhat present in the previous live incarnation and would be a big part of future incarnations of Crimson.

Kicking off the album, Schizoid Man, even in its poor quality, is able to sound pretty stellar. The group, grinding along intensely, with Burrell's growling vocals, gives an edge to the apocalyptic lyric; although it doesn’t really show Burrell’s vocal prowess as it did with other performances. The improv drives the song along even further, building up to an explosive finale, before being abruptly cut off. One of the two new songs on Earthbound, Peoria is much more relaxed than the previous track, giving Mel Collins a chance to show his chops as a saxist. Burrell also uses this time to mumble around, weakening the track itself. Earthbound although, is about as good as indulging in cat food, with Burrell adding even more unnecessary scat vocals to the track, although it is pretty rousing and cheerful. Behind these two jams showed the internal issues of the band. Fripp losing control of his own band, was the victim of a mutiny of some sort. The other tracks, The Sailor’s Tale and Groon, feature impressive playing by the band, the latter being one of the best renditions of the track, despite being cut off earlier than usual. Groon features the band working as a unit, before Wallace takes the helm for his VCS3-infused drum solo, channeling Carl Palmer of Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Only after the solo is finally over, does the band come back in before fading out, ending the album.

Earthbound, throughout the long forty-one years it has been out, has always been known for how jarring it was to the ear and how it went against everything Fripp had done quality-wise in the previous and coming years. It was and is notoriously weak, to the point where Fripp attempted to “delete” the album, rendering it hard to find, before customer demand forced him to release it several years later. It was bad to the point where Atlantic Records, the band’s North American label, absolutely refused to release it, and was released on E.G.’s budget label due to its quality alone. Thinking about, this album could’ve been much better, and definitely much worse. From what was released twenty years later on the “King Crimson Collector’s Club”, Fripp had far much more shows to choose from, but for one reason or another, chose the worst possible recordings, surprising for someone who is known for high quality recordings. In general, there was so much wasted potential, both on this album, and for this particular incarnation of King Crimson.

I really wanted to like it and all, but with the exception of Schizoid Man and Peoria, there’s simply nothing here to enjoy in this mess of bogged-down sound that is called a “live album”. To put this review in four words: “It’s not worth it.” Nothing here is worth your time, and while there are some enjoyable aspects to Earthbound, the effort put forth here is just downright shameful.

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