Marc CellucciOne More Red Nightmare
King Crimson is the grandpappy of all progressive rock bands. Their 1969 album In the Court of the Crimson King essentially kickstarted the genre, and prog bands would actually make the charts for a time. But since humans can’t have nice things, this eventually lead to bands like Yes making 20 minute songs about Hindu shastras, which obviously isn’t sustainable.
In college, I was totally in my prog phase, to where I didn’t consider anything else to be real music. The “simple” sounds of bands like Alice in Chains, Rage Against the Machine, and Soundgarden did nothing for me, and I turned a snooty snout upwards at that so-called music. I’m glad I’m over that now.
The Road to Red
I was fairly familiar with King Crimson, as I knew their debut album backwards and forwards, and I had a greatest hits cassette tape that I would listen to during long drives from the DFW area to San Antonio and back. This is when I drove a Yugo, with no air conditioning in the Texas heat. I’d have the windows down, the Walkman in my ears, and songs like “Epitaph” in my head. (There would be times I’d forget to put on sunscreen, and with the windows down, one half of my face would get a mean sunburn. It was quite a look.)
King Crimson went through many lineup changes as well as directional shifts, and Red is considered to be one of the peaks for the band. They were a stripped-down trio at this point. You have Robert Fripp there of course, doing Fripp-y things. The legendary jazz/rock drummer Bill Bruford is here to make you actually pay attention to the drums. Rounding it out is John Wetton, who I was only familiar with through his poppy, money-printing turn in Asia. I didn’t know he was a monster bass player, and he brings it on this record.
The Tunes
Right, on with the show. A lot of people rank Red as the very best KC album, and it’s one of the first “prog metal” records. It is a pretty short album, and for a Crimson album, is one of the more easily digestible ones.
1. Red
One of their best known instrumentals, and for good reason — it rocks completely and utterly. A loud, angular intro leads to a deep groove, like the sound of an army of orcs coming for your village. At six minutes and twenty seconds, it’s actually the shortest song on the album, but it’s just the right length to make its statement without overstating things. Justifiably legendary.
2. Fallen Angel
The first time I heard this, I got worried. It starts out saccharine sweet, reminiscent of something like “I Talk to the Wind,” and I thought we were back to some of the early KC sounds that wouldn’t have held up in the mid ’70s. But never fear, KC uglies the song up plenty as it goes on. The vocals during the soaring chorus are a particular highlight.
3. One More Red Nightmare
This is a jam, and my favorite track on the record. It starts out with a simple-yet-monstrous riff, punctuated by some Bill Bruford wizardry. Have you ever heard a cymbal solo? That’s basically what you are getting with this song, as Bruford uses a broken cymbal he found in the trash to punctuate the space between the guitars. It’s a sound that people have tried to emulate ever since. The vocal verses are a swinging groove with hand-clapping, standing in stark contrast to the lyrics, which talk about air-flight anxiety. The instrumental portions are melodic and carry the tune well. If you don’t like this one, King Crimson is not the band for you…
4. Providence
…and if you don’t like this one, then you are like me. This by far my least favorite element of King Crimson — the ambient, orchestral, noodling improv that is just kinda there. This is eight minutes and eight seconds of skip.
5. Starless
This is a fan favorite, and for a reason. It has everything you want in a prog song — pensive lyrics talking about doom and gloom, rousing vocals, and a long instrumental passage where the bass line is almost impossible to count to (let alone dance to). This is another litmus test to see if you can get into King Crimson or not.
Conclusion
All-in-all, if it weren’t for Providence, I’d say this record is immaculate. I give it 4.5 screaming faces out of 5.
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