King Crimson: Lizard
(1970, Virgin)
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Band members: Gordon Haskell - Vocals, Bass guitar Robert Fripp - Guitars, Mellotron, Electric keyboards, Devices
Keith Tippett - Piano |
Rating: 



Crimson's third effort, while the first two albums were similar to each other, the band
has progressed a lot on this one. Here they're taking a big step away from rock and are
moving into a more jazz- and classical- oriented style which gives the musicians the
bigger freedom to explore the horizons of their talents. Well something like that.
The 3 first tracks are mostly jazz influenced and they're all great. Crimson always have
at least one beautiful ballad on their albums, here it's "Lady of the dancing water".
Then the last one, it's a 23 minute track which is divided into 4 parts and the third
of those consists of 3 parts. I don't have the time or strength to try to explain the
whole track "Lizard" for you, let me just say it's one of the most variated and the greatest
Crimson songs imo, it's a song which takes an open mind to understand, you never really
know what you're gonna get, but then again that statement goes for most of King Crimson's
productions. Mentionable though is that Jon Anderson, singer from the wonderful prog band
Yes, does lead vocals on "Prince Rupert awakes", awesome as usual, did anyone think anything
else?
One of my absolute favorite Crimson albums, you definitely need this. If you want to get into
the wonderful world of King Crimson, I suggest you buy "In the court of the crimson king",
"In the wake of Poseidon" and this one to begin with.