In the Wake of Poseidon

Here we have King Crimson's most controversial album. After the musical breakthrough of their debut, there was a period of turmoil among the band members. Fripp wanted to explore darker and more intense musical areas, while McDonald and Giles wanted to go in a mellower way. The result was McDonald and Giles leaving the band, making King Crimson Fripp's brainchild.

But Giles and McDonald returned, and they did make a more mellow "In The Court of The Crimson King". The name of the mellower debut is "In The Wake of Poseidon".

To call this album bad would be a bad take. Technically, it's good. Other than The Devils Triangle, everything else is listenable and has that King Crimson vibe in it. The thing that drags it down this album has nothing to do with the album itself, but with the debut, as this album is almost an identical copy of it, just weaker and has "The Devil's Triangle" in it. Even the ordering is the same. "Pictures of A City" is "Schizoid Man", "Cadence and Cascade" is "I Talk To The Wind" and the s/t is "Epitaph"

If the debut suddenly disappeared off the face of the Earth, this album would be a sufficient replacement. Not good, mind you, but sufficient.

I think that "Cat Food" is beautiful tho, and is the only original thing that I like in here.

"Merman" and "mermaid" seem like such innocuous words. First of all, they're not maids. They know what a bed of seaweed feels like, and they know the salty taste of human blood. A merday morn isn't some holiday to the seaside or a bit of sea bathing--or if it is, it's your last. For this morn it's a raid, an attack of the bloodthirsty seafolk from the deep, in that grey hour before the dawn, when tired mothers whisper lullabies to their stirring babies to try to keep them asleep for an hour longer.