This is the penultimate King Crimson studio album (assuming there isn't yet another resurrection), where the band is reduced to a four-piece - Fripp, Adrian Belew, Trey Gunn and Pat Mastelotto - and Fripp finds himself the only Englishman in the band.
This one was picked up cheap in a raid on EBay recently, so let's see how the 21st Century Crimson Men (see what I did there?) sounded.
ProzaKc Blues features a pounding, relentless beat characteristic of KC, over which Belew sings his blues, with an orthodox guitar solo (presumably also Belew!).
The ConstruKction Of Light is a longer piece, in which Fripp's distinctive guitar runs come to the fore, over a sparse bass and staccato drumming, pleasant and interesting, but no more, and the vocal part is more memorable for the Fripp guitar than the lyrics. Similarly Into The Frying Pan, which plods along, the most interesting part being the soundscape ending.
FraKctured gives the listener much more of what to expect from KC and Fripp, intricate guitar runs, and crashing drums and is an much more convincing listen, before another Belew song The World's My Oyster Soup Kitchen Floor Wax Museum, which despite the long winded title works well.
Larks' Tongues In Aspic Part IV (surely it should be AspiKc) revisits the 1970s piece and sounds as you would expect - loud, uncompromising and intricate. And really very good! This leads seamlessly into Coda: I Have A Dream similar in style, with a vocal run off, then a minute of silence (it doesn't work on CD, lads!) before Heaven And Earth (credited to ProjeKct X) which combines a Fripp ambient soundscape with sections from the band flowing in and out, eventually settling into a band instrumental.
3* - despite some fantastic stuff on here, there's nothing that moves the Crimson story along, and enough that's ordinary to make this an occasional treat.
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