Larks' Tongues in Aspic – 40th Anniversary Edition Panegyric ***

Forget your Yesses, Genesises and ELPs – King Crimson were the truly progressive players in the pack, going down an improv path that few prog-rockers dared venture. When prog bands had a line-up change the world would shift on its axis, but Crimson’s line-up was as fluid as some of their improvisations.

Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, released some 40 years ago, was the first Crimson album to feature drummer Bill Bruford and bassist/vocalist John Wetton. But it’s the band’s über-guitar genius, Robert Fripp, who steers the album through its myriad twists and turns, from the 12-minute instrumental opener that veers between clanking milk-bottle sounds and all-out metal guitar mayhem, to the pastoral Book of Saturday to the robo-funk of Easy Money and the weirdcore wig-out of The Talking Drum. Makes Tales from Topographic Oceans sound like Gilbert O’Sullivan.

Download tracks:Exiles, Easy Money, Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part Two