The final King Crimson album before they took an extended hiatus and transformed into a different beast altogether in 1981, Red is the British prog-rock pioneers’ heaviest LP and is considered by many smart people to be their peak. The band went into London’s Olympic Studio with a core lineup of guitarist Robert Fripp, bassist/vocalist John Wetton, and drummer Bill Bruford—talk about your ultimate badasses. Robert also called in some prog-rock studs to accentuate the five tracks on Red: saxophonists Mel Collins and Ian McDonald, violinist David Cross, cornetist Mark Charig, oboist Robin Miller, and others. Richard Palmer-James penned lyrics on a couple of songs. All concerned will enter Valhalla for their efforts.
The paradox of the phenomenal Red is, Fripp thought that King Crimson was an obsolete dinosaur; he was itching to do other musical projects, as releases with Brian Eno and guest appearances with David Bowie and Peter Gabriel, among other endeavors, proved. And yet, KC created a masterpiece that’s influenced a raft of rock groups in the ensuing decades. What wags call math-rock pretty much germinated in Red‘s brainy and brawny DNA.
The title track kicks off the LP with one of the most monumental, magisterial instrumentals in all of rock. It sounds like the song you play after winning World War III—wait, there will be no winners of that war. Anyway, you get what I mean… I hope. This music abounds with heroic motifs and empowering riffs of magmatic ebb and flow that render any words a vocalist may emit as superfluous. By contrast, “Fallen Angel” starts as a sweet, baroque art-rock ballad before accruing heft and angst in its second half. It’s a blessed respite before KC plunge into another paragon of infernal menace, “One More Red Nightmare.” This is rock that would make Satan himself soil his boxers. Bruford manifests some amazingly wonky percussion timbres from… sheet metal? Whatever the case, it sounds fantastic. The song also contains a couple of compelling saxophone solos, which few rock songs do.
Edited down to eight minutes from an improvisation at a 1974 Rhode Island gig, “Providence” is Red‘s outlier. It’s a gradually intensifying piece that builds to a glowering, suspenseful climax. Wetton’s bass is in particular monstrous form, while Fripp tears off the paint in the room with sculpted skree. Finally, “Starless” is a slice of grandiose, regal prog that harks back to KC’s 1969 debut, In The Court Of The Crimson King. It’s one of the most beautiful songs in rock history, yet it also possesses an exhilarating jazz-rock blow-out that would make John McLaughlin lose his Mahavishnu. The refrain of “Starless and… BIBLE BLACK!” always ricochets around my noggin for hours after I listen to it, with no complaints. Wetton’s vocals here really soar, making me forget about this time in Asia (the band, not the continent). “Starless” earns every second of its 12:24 run time. It’s a grandiloquent climax to an indestructible record. -Buckley Mayfield
Located in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, Jive Time is always looking to buy your unwanted records (provided they are in good condition) or offer credit for trade. We also buy record collections.
