Larks’ Tongues in Aspic

Certainly not as phenomenal as In The Court of the Crimson King, that is also on the list, but it is still a King Crimson album. I'd put fee of their records above this one but Lark's Tounges shine with KC genius all over the place. Some of the heaviest riffs of theirs, a lot of genres put together, with psychadelic KC feel. What else can I say? It's a prog rock classic, one of the easiest 5 stars on the list.

A flawless progressive rock masterpiece from start to finish. 5/5

I can’t explain it, but this makes me want to watch The Last Unicorn.

1973 is comfortably in the era where prog rock got too nerdy for casual listeners. Spotify listen counts tell me I'm not alone, but my favorite track is "Book Of Saturday" because it's only 3 minutes long. Also, the opening riff has definitely been sampled for some hip-hop, right? Whosampled.com isn't giving me anything, but there's 100% chance I've heard that riff in alt hip-hop before and I NEED ANSWERS. That's probably going to bother me more than the visual of a jello full of bird tongues, but I'm destined for an aneurysm either way.

I think Red is a much better, more fully realised and focused album. There are plenty of great parts to this with some incredible sounds and bits of improvisation.

However, I feel like Jamie Muir's talents could be better integrated. The extremes of loud/quiet aren't a bad idea (see Mogwai) but it feels a bit like Fripp wasn't keen on Muir's solo sections amd designated them to the extreme quiet parts.

David Cross's string parts are really good in themselves but there are a few places where it feels like he and Fripp are vying for the same melodic ground and place in the mix.

Pätevä, joskin hieman ahdistava progelevy. Pitää varmaan kuunnella tulevaisuudessa enemmän, että aukeaa kunnolla.

Sounds like he's being slowly strangled which is affecting not only his singing but his guitar playing and decisions as to what is TOTAL SHIT or not

Had some cool twists and turns which I liked. Tbf, I think this could go grow on me and I don't think it was the best album to listen to whilst hungover so I will give it some benefit of the doubt.

A great album. King Crimson wrote prototypical pieces for many successful successors. Unfortunately, I discovered the band late, but then I was thrilled. I liked this album so much that I even enjoyed listening to the recording session extracts that were included on my version of the album. 5/5

The fact that three of the six original tracks on Larks' Tongues In Aspic (a savory title!) are instrumentals shows a degree of growth on the part of the OG progressive band: prog is a foul and soulless genre primarily due to its lyrical failings. These instrumentals are especially poignant b/c Bill Bruford and Jamie Muir are excellent percussionists, adding far more than detail to this already intricate record. I'd be false, however, if I said I despised what this album has to offer lyrically: the other three tracks were well worth my time. 'She responds like a limousine / Brought alive on the silver screen / To the shuddering breath of yesterday.' In short, way better than the debut - and tho it's still pretentious, I take to it like I take to Wish You Were Here.

That was some very quick return to King Crimson. Unfortunately, a downgrade too

Nå begynner det å bli en stund siden jeg hørte In the Court of the Crimson King i sin helhet, men jeg mener dette albumet har en bedre helhet? Selv om den ikke har låter av "21st Century Schizoid Man"-kaliber.

Tittelsporene er gromme instrumentaler som bare låter slik prog skal låte. Fiolinen blender inn perfekt og er et subtilt høydepunkt der den dukker opp. "Easy Money" kunne like gjerne vært en av de bedre Pink Floyd-låtene. PF er litt hypa, men de har jo også noen gode låter.

"The Talking Drum" er litt nørd, men det er vel obligatorisk at trommeslageren på et progalbum får vist seg litt fram. Heldigvis er det fiolin der. Alt i alt en plate jeg gjerne hører flere ganger og føler jeg allerede burde ha hørt en god del gjennom livet.

It would be mediocre if there wasn't a 13 minute long instrumental at the very beginning that is nothing but monotonous.

A bit worried about this. The Apple Music review blurb includes the line, "Often considered the first part of a trilogy that features Starless and Bible Black and Red, Larks’ is arguably the toughest for new fans to process...". Oh boy.

Welp. That was great. Like, really, really great. I'm a fan of prog, but I'm not the biggest fan of 70s rock. So even though I've known forever that King Crimson is considered one of the founding fathers of progressive rock, I've actually never heard anything by them. This album makes me realize how much I've been missing. Is it for everyone? Of course not. It's primarily instrumental, and the vocals aren't really that great. But in terms of listening to an album with historical relevancy, I'd say this fits the bill way more than yesterday's SECOND Christina Aguilera album.

This truly is one of the albums that one should listen to before they die. 4.5 stars.

This is an album I've got in my library, but that I don't listen to very frequently. I enjoy King Crimson, and freely admit that they definitely fall into the "acquired taste" category. This may not be my favorite album by them, but it's by no means a bad album of theirs... if you like King Crimson. There's a bunch of neat things going on in this collections of songs. But I suspect that the ratings on this site will range from "this is nearly unlistenable" (from those who don't like the band) to "this is really neat" (from those who do like the band). And there will likely be almost no overlap in that Venn diagram.

Prog Rock :-(

Mid

Класний альбом у дискографії крімзон, приблизно з нього починається мій улюблений їхній період (далі були старлес та ред). Шикарне поєднання прог-року та чогось більш імпровізаційно-авангардного (місцями мені тут згадується Райх, місцями Белла Барток). Також присутній хіт Easy Money.

Сильний матеріал від одного з найкращих гуртів евер.

One hell of a disorienting first listen, but I started picking up on that delicious prog rock goodness on the second one. This is one to truly unpack over the coming days and weeks; for now I'm content with a 4, there is a lot of interesting drumming and riffing through rhythm changes that kept me very engaged, especially on the back half. Weird, heavy, fun!

Standouts: Larks' Tongues In Aspic (Part I) • Easy Money • The Talking Drum • Larks' Tongues In Aspic (Part II)

v good, but i’ve never heard another one of theirs that matches “in the court.”

Big King Crimson fan here, so definitely biased. Personally, if I wanted to represent KC's Wetton-era, I would have chosen Red. Much more accessible yet still just as groundbreaking (and Starless is one of my favorite songs of all time - and I'm not alone as it's currently ranked as the #2 song of all time on rateyourmusic.com). But let's talk about this album. I try to imagine what this sounds like to the uninitiated and I can only think it would sound disjointed and aimless with a few cool moments here and there. The trick, though, is to recognize that this album has more in common with Stravinsky and Bartok than with Chuck Berry. If you listen to it like a symphony, you hear layers upon layers. And that's really what a song like LTIA Part I is - it's a modern symphony, played with rock instruments (well, and a violin and random percussion). However, unlike a symphony that might be written by a single composer, much of it is based on improv, which makes it have more in common with jazz. Take these elements together - classical, jazz, metal - and you've got King Crimson (at least 70s KC - 80s and beyond, which aren't included in the 1001, are a completely different animal. Check out Discipline for the perfect example). You're not going to dance to it, or bop to it, but perhaps you can appreciate it more (turn it up, too, because the volume differences are similar to a symphony as well).

Continuing through the album, next we have Book of Saturday, a beautiful ballad - love the guitar line throughout the song and the backwards guitar solo into the violin solo is so good. Exiles is a song I didn't truly appreciate until David Cross did a re-make years later. Excellent song. Easy Money is a great track - a bit more "groovy" than the rest of the album, although it's a slow groove. Then, The Talking Drum gives us a cool jam with a slow build to LTIA Part II. I've seen them play this live and it gets incredibly intense, building up to LTIA Part II, which is a heavy metal instrumental unlike anything recorded to that point (again, had they picked Red, this style would have been well represented by that album's title track). Then the end is just pure majesty - it's my favorite track on the album. I realize this album isn't for everyone, but for me it's a masterpiece. Easy 5.