Number 44: "Larks' Tongues In Aspic" by King Crimson
"LTIA" still stands as a daring, experimental effort, a step in a bold new direction and, ultimately, the album that saved King Crimson from becoming an anachronism like so many other classic 70's prog bands.
King Crimson has noo cheesy concept albums, no sci-fi escapism, and not too much overblown soloing. In fact, starting with guitarist/mellotron player/leader Robert Fripp’s first from-scratch lineup rebuild in 1973, they turned into an increasingly strange beast, marrying brain-melting heavy rock to European-free-jazz-esque playing disciplines and souping it up with plenty of exotic influences and instruments.
Unfortunately, the following three “vocal numbers” are nowhere near as gorgeous, Book Of Saturday being the best of them. A two-minute pop(!) song about the unfaithful lover you just can’t let go, driven by David Cross’s beautiful violin, complete with two backwards solos and John Wetton’s (another bassist/singer!) sweet voice. Even if it sounds unlikely, it really does work! Wetton tries to sound “dramatic” but miserably fails and has trouble hitting some of the higher notes. The odd, chaotic instrumental interludes are the only redeeming quality. Easy Money is a cool, funky rocker that trips over its own ludicrous lyrics (written by new writing-only member of the band, Richard Palmer-James). A terribly failed attempt at a “satire” of modern commercialism accompanied by “sound effects” to make things even more embarrassing.
But however solid the “songs” may be, the instrumentals are the real meat here. Hence, the two closing tracks are pure gold. The Talking Drum takes a central rhythmic motif and wraps eastern-tinged violin and rumbling guitar around it. The track gets increasingly louder and more tumultuous halts before Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part 2, which seems completely unrelated to the first part, but is a jazzoid, repetitive, technical heavy rock, with Fripp’s nasty, angry guitar colliding with a madly screeching violin and clamoring free-form percussion, dissolving into a total chaos.
In conclusion, the instruments are phenomenon and the entire album for me, bleeds King Crimson.