KING CRIMSON — Larks' Tongues In Aspic (review)

KING CRIMSON — Larks' Tongues In Aspic album cover Album · 1973 · Jazz Related Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
Sean Trane
Aspic's Lark on the Tongue!

This album for a long time was my least favourite of 70's Crimson albums because of Wetton's voice and totally weird sense of dynamic sound-levels - only Exiles seemed of interest as well as Talking Drum but for the rest...... I was simply not into it!!

And then one day, a friend put this album as I was arguing (politics) with a girlfriend at 2AM, and the spark came, with the music blaring out of the speakers at a very unreasonable loud volume for the time of that time of night. As I said , prior to this I only enjoyed Exile and to a lesser extent TD, but those crazy percussions that had turned me off in Easy Money started making extreme sense and I actually stopped in mid sentence (I was about to nail the coffin closed on the argument I was winning hands down) and yelled: YYYYEEESSSS!!!!!!!!. She looked at me and said: no King Crimson!! But I was now instantly hooked, and asked for a repeat of the track. Needless to say that after this repeat, this first thing I did was to go home with the borrowed album and played it twice before falling asleep. To this day, that famous coffin is still lacking a few nails, and I will gladly leave it that way!! ;-)

The 2 parts of Aspic became clear to me also but it is the incredible percussion from Muir on Easy Money that convinced me that this was probably the creative high point of this band. I still have a bit of a problem with Wetton's singing on Book Of Saturday but it is a thankfully short number. Still nowadays, Exiles and Taking Drum are my fave on the album, but almost every track is now a pure classic on my mind. Definitely one of Crimson's best oeuvre, even if it is not the most accessible.
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