Metal Reviews

They have so many albums (and they're sooooo expensive here) I want to be shure where to start.

I would say Red, but I'm biased because that's my favorite. Its tough to find a bad starting point. lizardtail, our resident King Crimson superfan, should be along shortly with much better recommendations.

I posted somewhere my top 3 KC albums..

it consists in three albums of three different eras:

-In the Court of the Crimson King is their first album, softer than any other KC album it displays cool prog rocking jazzy folk, it has great melodies & 1 killer rock song : 21st Century Schizoid Man

-Red is harder, still hints of jazziness but overall more classic prog rocking on this one (great melodies too), it's also a masterpiece that will introduce you to the not so soft side of this great band

- Discipline is more new wavy prog rock... in a sense it's like if a new wave band could be visious and instrumentally über talented (which none were)...

get those three and you'll have a clear view of the marvels King Crimson was able to deliver...

and like I said previously I'm not a big fan of the later era... great musicianship finally killed the songs :(

I'm gonna have to go with "In the Wake of Poseidon" as being their best....its soo fucking awesome...that and Greg Lake sings on it which makes it better for me.

aw shucks. King Crimson are heavy metal now? proto-metal, maybe..

The first album of any of their waves are good entry points:

In the Court: jazz rock, one of the main originators of Prog. full of total anthems, especially the title track. Holy Terror mentioned Wake of Poseidon - it comes next and is very similar, but with more distinctive singing and slightly less original songwriting, to me. the trouble with this one is Moonchild: three minutes of crushingly beautiful, frosty ballad followed by eight minutes of free-form minimalism.. if you like that one then you're set, haha. the drummer here (michael giles?) is incidentally very good..

Lark's Tongues in Aspic: really cryptic, heavy on percussion and flute/violin with a strong sense of eastern mysticism. get used to john wetton's voice here to prepare for Red. I think Bill Bruford starts here, my favourite drummer. should be everyone's favourite drummer. This one has themes which are reprised on later albums, including the most recent one.

Discipline: math new-wave direction, get used to Adrian Belew here. easier to get into than the previous albums I mentioned but still has a lot of depth. matte kudesai is gorgeous, and thela hun gingeet is super-neurotic
edit: I remember you saying you liked Gordian Knot, was that you? If so, you'll like this one.

THRAK: brilliant quasi-math, very hard going and nothing like prog. nothing. at all. not even slightly. start here if you like Tony Levin or bands like spiral architect or tech-death bands.. it's not heavy, but it's unbelievably textured and near impenetrable on the first listen. there are songs on here, though, whether TIE likes it or not..

if you like any of those, try out Red, Starless and Bible Black and Lizard.. my favourite kC song is on Starless but it's not an easy album to start with.

oh and if you need to know what the covers look like, look to my signature 8)

King Crimson: Where Do I Start?

In the Rock forum.

I don't think its too much of a stretch to call King Crimson prog metal. Better than calling Trivium thrash anyway.