Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: King Crimson
Label: Discipline Global Mobile
Release: 1974
Rating: 5/5
King Crimson broke up before this album even came out, totally out of the blue. According to guitarist and unofficial band boss Robert Fripp, the reason was the growing corruption that had started to eat away at the music industry and with it the “approaching apocalypse” (for creative music). And as a farewell, they put together yet another one of their best works. “Red” is without a doubt one of the greatest masterpieces in the history of progressive rock, and it landed right when the genre was at its peak. But the “dark clouds” were already gathering and something was already rotten in the music industry, and it’s this very album that sounded the alarm with its atmosphere, signaling through both the music and the lyrics that one musical era was ending and another beginning. A few years later that proved true with the birth of punk, and Fripp’s apocalyptic vision of the decline of musical creativity came to pass, because the music industry had grown into the dominant force that began to choke the creativity of most prog bands. “Red” is soaked from start to finish in an all-pervading, gloomy, apocalyptic mood. The lyrics are ostensibly about the law of the street and gangsters, but at the same time they indirectly target modern man’s entrapment in his little rational world of illusions and petty satisfactions, under the watchful eye of institutions. On top of that, King Crimson never sounded this angry and punchy before or since, all while pulling off their trademark mix of complexity and the incredible dynamics of the individual pieces that’s so typical of them.
Once again, the lineup went through a major change before the recording: the brilliant violinist David Cross left (or rather, left at Fripp’s initiative). So King Crimson became a trio for the first and probably last time: Fripp, Wetton and Bruford – a magnificent trinity. Even so, the album features a bunch of guests who had either worked with the band in the past (Mark Charig on cornet and Robin Miller on oboe) or were once full members (original saxophonist Ian McDonald, his successor Mel Collins, and violinist David Cross). With their help, all three masters got superb backing on individual pieces, and the end result was majestic.
The album opens with the title track “Red”, a red-hot instrumental that’s the main reason the album is still known as their heaviest ever. With its scorching, dark guitar riff, it instantly transports the listener to a world where human life lost all value long ago. Add Bruford’s countless drum fills and Wetton’s bass, fast and charging as always (this record has some of the best bass playing of his entire career). This legendary instrumental is practically the definition of King Crimson. The tense, apocalyptic mood, where you can feel the iron fist of Big Brother and the individual is watched everywhere, simply refuses to let up. After the opening dose of frenzied rhythm and white-hot riffs, the piece turns into a set of three or four fantastic, guitar-based melodic lines that crash into each other with abandon. As far as its structure goes, “Red” is almost a perfect creation; the very definition of perfection. Just when you think the first downpour of riffs has calmed down a bit, the piece flips completely and a passage follows where the main motif keeps coming back again and again until the composition runs out. What an album opener! But the best is yet to come.
“Fallen Angel”, a melancholic and dark ballad, uses its atmosphere to portray the fall of human society into a breed of “fallen angels” through excellent lyrics about the law of the street, a.k.a. gangsters. John Wetton is in top vocal form here. The intro is fairly calm, with violin and gentle guitar passages, before it grows into an ominous climax via Fripp’s riffs and a melancholic chorus. Wetton’s vocals, full of pain, are joined by the woodwinds, Fripp’s “frenzied” guitar and Bruford’s drum turns. A real cataclysm kicks in. And that’s followed by one of the best transitions in the history of rock music, the kind that leaves the listener breathless. Fripp serves up a killer melancholic riff that then turns into a solo of epic proportions. That’s the peak of the whole composition. After that, the woodwinds come back, along with Wetton’s excellent vocals and his rattling bass line. The song then wraps up with a long outro featuring melodies split across the speakers: on one side the listener hears some gorgeous mellotron, while on the other there’s superb cornet playing. This is another unique, unrepeatable piece from the band, and it will forever remain in the annals of the best they ever made. The mood of the album settles down a little here while continuing what the title track introduced so well: first it builds up an exceptional atmosphere, then kneads it into the strangest possible shapes with a perfect interplay of vocals and lyrics.
“One More Red Nigthmare” is another great piece that in a way contains the best elements of the first two songs. With it the band keeps going and confirms just how wide-ranging they are. Fripp’s wicked riffing is back in the spotlight. At the same time, though, this composition has a completely different direction. Even though it again has a very sharp sound, it’s once more a truly special piece that’s damn hard to pin down. It carries on with yet another wicked Fripp opening riff, Wetton’s brilliant vocals once again, a rich array of woodwinds and a burning rhythm line (in the second half, Bruford’s drum work is especially thrilling). The piece teems with all kinds of jazz elements: rhythmic hand claps, an unusual cymbal sound and an excellent saxophone solo duet between McDonald and Collins. Another brilliant composition that doesn’t fall short of the first two in quality in any way.
Back then King Crimson were above all a band of countless improvisations (the previous album “Starless And Bible Black” (1974) was especially known for that). So another excellent improvisation called “Providence” is no surprise at all. The violin dominates its intro. You’ll have a hard time finding such an unusual yet brilliant improvisation anywhere else, with violin, bass and guitar playing such odd roles; it’s top-notch jazz fusion. It started out as a live improvisation that was probably tweaked or reworked a bit more in the studio. Even though as an improvisation it doesn’t match the flow and intensity of the first three pieces, it still has thrilling elements that stay completely fenced off from any characteristic melody or structure for its entire length. The first part is mostly Cross’s experimental violin scraping, with a major contribution from the improvisations of all three band members. With its spine-chilling sounds it pulls off what’s also the main strength of this album: creating an unrepeatable atmosphere. In the closing section the improvisation even makes room for something that leans toward a melodic line in the interplay of bass and guitar. Then the violin wraps it all up. Every time I’m surprised how fast this eight-minute improvisation flies by.
“Starless” is one of the most magnificent pieces in their history and a thoroughly fitting, epic farewell for the band. It’s hard to pick the best track on the album, but if any deserves the title, it’s definitely “Starless”. If there was ever an ideal way for one of the best progressive rock bands in the world to say goodbye, King Crimson found it with this wonderful, melancholic and majestic epic of incredible scale. It opens with a deeply melancholic intro on violin and mellotron, even more melancholic than “Fallen Angel”. The gorgeous mellotron playing from Fripp is followed by Wetton’s best vocal moment on the album. The immense pain his voice radiates here shakes me to the core every single time. The feeling can’t be put into words, which is also down to the exceptional lyrics. It simply blows the listener away with its beauty and incredible emotion. But that’s only half of the composition! After a few seconds, you’ll be left gasping for air when you hear Fripp’s solo on a single string! Yes, that’s right, Fripp simply plays a solo on one string, over and over, creating an almost hypnotic atmosphere. Suddenly he starts using the other strings too (though now and then he still returns to that one string), and then slowly, slowly the other band members join in. This heralds a special kind of tension, as Fripp’s guitar gets a bit louder and Bruford’s drum swings get even more technical. The band cranks up the tension second by second, and then comes the part where they bring the listener to the boiling point. This is followed by a saxophone solo. When that bows out, a section kicks in where everything suddenly explodes: Fripp, Bruford, Wetton and the other guests simply go berserk on their instruments and create the definition of controlled chaos. That finally leads to a section where the saxophone takes the initiative again. It also takes over the main mellotron melody, turning it from melancholic into tragic, majestic, incredible…simply perfect! After a few more closing passages on violin and a final fade-out on the melody created by the saxophone, “Starless” comes to an end. The last minute of the composition is so magnificent that after every listen I get goosebumps all over my body, which simply can’t be described. I won’t be exaggerating one bit if I say it’s one of the greatest works of art in the history of humankind.
“Red” isn’t just one of the greatest masterpieces King Crimson ever made, but one of the greatest in all of rock music. It stands shoulder to shoulder with “In The Court Of The Crimson King” (1969) as one of the band’s best and most important works, and it also rounds off a period in their history in a very fitting way. As mentioned, King Crimson broke up before the album even came out and were nowhere to be seen for almost seven years, and then, totally out of the blue, they came back. Again in a brand-new form and in a more majestic way than you could possibly imagine. So “Red” didn’t mean the end of the King Crimson legend, as most people thought at the time, but only the end of a chapter, both for the band and for rock music. But more about that chapter in another review. “Red” is a timeless masterpiece of progressive rock and rock music in general, and it will keep thrilling people for a long time with its boundless perfection. That also makes it a must in the collection of every serious rock fan.
Lineup
John Wetton – vocals, bass guitar
Robert Fripp – guitar, devices
Bill Bruford – drums
Guest musicians:
David Cross – violin
Mel Collins – soprano saxophone
Ian McDonald – alto saxophone
Robin Miller – oboe
Mark Charig – cornet
Production
King Crimson
Tracklist
1. Red (6:20)
2. Fallen angel (6:00)
3. One more red nightmare (7:04)
4. Providence (8:08)
5. Starless (12:18)
Album length: 39:50
