Lizard

Its not the vocals: Anderson sounds better than Haskell, but Haskell is OK- its the instumental mix. The heavy reliance on jazzy brass /piano riffing sounds awful (Oi Mel Collins! NO! Tippet! Stoppit! etc).

Fripp twittering away in the background on acoustic guitar isn't what you need on a Crimson album. The Mellatron hardly gets a look in despite some tempting / exasperating snippets (the PARPP bit in Circus, the decending scale on Happy Families). Imagine how ace 'Indoor Games' would be if that was Fripp riffing out fuzzed up powerchords instead of that damn sax!!!

I'm not sure of the chrongraphy but when did Fripp do his stint with VDGG? He's aiming for something and doesn't seem to know what it is, was he trying to sound like VDGG? The beginning bit of Lizard (the track) sounds like Yes (not surprisingly, but still..) Fripps signature guitar sound is really lovely there too. It stays nice right upto the middle bit with the flute, but again the brass starts to add and it just goes lumpen.

Making KC jazzier started on the worst bits of Posiedon (catfood) and trailed onto the worst bits of Islands. Both Posiedon and Islands are saved though, Pos. has the remains of the first album style and Isl. looks towards the freshness of the next phase.

Oh and Sinfield is all over the album... Who could possible think that letting Sinfield write about an evil Circus would be a good thing.

Bruford's playing during the seventies sounded almost amateurish (especially live) since he had no regard for keeping solid time, speeding up and slowing down... such uneven execution around the kit. It made Fripp crazy that there was such a weak foundation to play under.

Fripp had a hell of a time reigning in Bruford's tendencies in the eighties but I think, for the most part, he did a good job at restraining Bruford from his cliche' prog-rock leanings. Bruford almost achieved playing with actual groove at times, though he doesn't quite have any funk in him to pull it off. But, thanks to Fripp, his attention obviously was more focused on tightness during this period and was able to be in synch with Maestro Levin. Although on the last tour, they had to use a drum machine because Bruford was much too petulant and resorted to resisting what was neccessary from him to do as the drummer in a group, which is keep something resembling a solid tempo throughout an entire song.

Of course, any taste and subtlety was out the window with the lineup of the nineties, which wasn't originally intended to be such a "dinosaur" but Fripp obviously lost control before it began and the fool was just content to resurrect the name and be back in circulation. Listen to "The First Day" by Sylvian/Fripp from 1993 if you want to hear what Fripp had originally intended to be Crimson for the nineties. Everything that has followed under the Crimson name has been most regressive.

Title track came on shuffle, Anderson’s vox are awesome. Almost like a tricked out lost Yes track

oh wow this actually is about the king crimson album

i do like the s. wilson remix a lot, and the stuff from the album they've been doing live is good! usually i get shirty about "excerpts from" but nah they don't need to do the entire 20 minutes of it

"Indoor Games" - this has a few 70s Genesis-y moments, but replace Peter Gabriel with someone missing a third of the top of their head.

heard this album a ton and I still like this song, but I think I used to play this in the background a lot so I could tune out Gordon's "just back from duh dentist" vocal stylings.

I honestly think a lot of my like of this album was based on my love for "Cirkus" and the title track and I kinda just tolerate the stuff in the middle.

"Happy Family" would have been better without vocals

Nah I love how chaotic that track gets

didn't get to title track as some familial drama stopped my listening but I still like this about as much as I did 15 years ago (last time I listened).

that acoustic bit in "Cirkus" is my shit.

"Indoor Games" is "Cat Food" part 2, "Happy Family" is a fumbling early attempt at "Easy Money", and "Lady of the Dancing Water" is their weakest early ballad, complete with trombone solo.
The fact that this is their only early album to use synthesizer gives a hint that the method on this record was to throw everything in the studio onto the tracks and hope that it wouldn't just be a garish mess. It IS a garish mess, but there are interesting things nonetheless.

the Steven Wilson remix brings a lot out of previously buried detail out, it totally changed my tune on this album

Fripp said that too.

Phew, this is a fruity one!