Review Summary: Every Prog Rock band worth their salt has a slump, and this is King Crimson's
That lower rating just sort of sat there, taunting me.
Ever since I got into music, King Crimson have been one of my favorite bands. However, I felt a bit hollow saying that, as I had only listened to 3 of their albums. In the Court of the Crimson King remains one of my favorite records, Red is among some of the best prog rock and straight up rock you’ll ever hear, and In the Wake of Poseidon, a more subdued effort on the band’s part. So recently I said, ‘eh, why not? I’ll listen of their discography in it’s entirety’ So, not only is this review in the lens of a fan, but a fan who has listened to everything they’ve made. So don’t take it lightly when I say that ‘The Construkcion of Light’ is an absolute mess.
Usually I like listening to albums that are lower rated on this website when checking out a new band. My philosophy is that if I can find things to like in their worst work, I’ll end up loving their best work. Obviously I had checked out some of their more highly regarded works in the past, but I figured I’d give this one a shot first.
Something was immediately wrong when the first track started. The instrumentation is, for the most part, pretty solid, but then the vocals kicked in. For some unearthly reason they decided to put this awful, cheap sounding bass filter on the vocals. At first I figured that perhaps the lead singer is kinda old and needs to disguise that his voice has faded, but then after hearing the rest of the album, this doesn’t show up again. They just… decided to do it? I’ve listened to the song a few times trying to get what the decision making was, and my best bet was that they wanted to make a slightly darker album… so… weird vocal filter that sounds vaguely menacing?
Every song on here is a cluster of utter cacophony. Sometimes, when the stars align, there’ll be a nice chorus or verse that hits the landing, but it’s more than likely due to the law of averages working in their favor. Hell, my ‘favorite’ track on here, The World is My Oyster Soup Kitchen, I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be intentionally messy and strange, because the song is basically a huge musical mental breakdown, which I can get behind, but the feeling I’m left with was that it was more likely by total accident. Not to mention, King Crimson made THE definitive ‘Insane prog rock mental breakdown’ song with 21st Century Schizoid Man, they should know how to do this by now.
Even the album’s song names and title confuse me. I get the feeling that this album is supposed to convey being confusing and disjointed. The cover is strange, the name is spelled weirdly, the song titles repeat, so i can only assume that this is supposed to be this insane and gaudy trip into being overwhelmed by music, but it’s just so bland it never quite approaches that. I’m not sure how such talented musicians made an album that is simultaneously boring and has way too much going on.
Even when the music is good, there’s so much of it that it feels like you aren’t even listening to a song anymore. It just sounds like an assembly of vaguely musical sounds. And sure, fine, if that’s the point, then I guess they succeeded, but they still left behind an album that has no business muddying up their mostly really great work. I don’t even feel like the writing is as good as it used to be. The lyrics here are sometimes try-hard edgy or trippy, but just for the sake of itself. It feels weak and inconsistent, like King Crimson listened to a lesser Primus album and decided to imitate them. And not only that, but I feel the vibe they were going for here was much better captured in ‘THRAK’ which isn’t like, a mindblowing album or anything, but it does all this, but with actual structure that doesn’t just sound like they’re tuning guitars and just adding vocals. The instrumentation doesn’t even sound like it’s being skillfully handled, and these guys are masters of making crazy elaborate music with weird ideas, so why does it feel half baked?
This entire thing serves one purpose: to give you a headache. It’s so bafflingly obviously in your face with it’s gimmick that you wanna punch it. It makes talking about it hard because there’s only so many times you can say ‘this song is messy, poorly produced, has occasional moments, but that’s it’. That’s every song here. And from the people who are up with Pink Floyd as being the greatest Prog bands of all time, even from their worst, I expected more.
Favorite Track: The World’s My Oyster Soup Kitchen
Least Favorite Track: Prozakc Blues, FraKctured
