KING CRIMSON — Islands (review)

KING CRIMSON — Islands album cover Album · 1971 · Jazz Related Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
smartpatrol
In 1971, King Crimson reformed for a second time, adding Boz Burrell and Ian Wallace to replace Gordon Haskell and Andy McCulloch, respectively. Islands would be the only album this lineup would release. Like all other King Crimson albums, Islands is very experimental and unique. The album beings with Formenta Lady, which starts off with a slow, kind of mystifying tune, played out by double bassist Harry Miller and Mel Collins on his flute. Boz then joins in with his hautingly beautiful voice. After a verse, the song transforms into a folksy ballad for the chorus, but then goes back to the Bass-Flute section for another verse. After another chorus the song ends with the band jamming on the folksy chorus, joined by Paulina Lucas, singing a melody over the band. Next is Sailor's Tale, a great, jazzy instrumental, and then The Letters, which starts out soft, and ballad-like, but then we get a jazzy, explorative instrumental break. Then another emotionaly charged verse. Next is Ladies of the Road. Very jazzy, pretty hard, except for the chorus, which is signifgantly soft compared to the rest of the song. This is followed by Song of the Gulls, a lovely piece played by a string ensemble. The album is finished with the amazing title track, which is one of my favorite songs of all time. It is amazingly beautiful, beyond expression. I love it. It's hard to explain how great this song is. As always, Peter Sinfield's lyrics are very well written, but out of the four King Crimson albums he's written for, Islands is definetly the least exceptional. Especially Ladies of the Road, which is boarderline misogonist. So, yeah. This album has it's fair share of ups and downs. But I like it. If anything, it's extremly insteresting. 3/5
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