King Crimson - Lizard

Released - December 1970

Genre - Progressive Rock

Producer - Robert Fripp & Peter Sinfield

Selected Personnel - Robert Fripp (Guitar/Mellotron/Synthesiser/Organ); Gordon Haskell (Bass/Vocals); Mel Collins (Saxophone/Flute); Andy McCulloch (Drums); Peter Sinfield (Lyricist); Keith Tippett (Piano); Mark Charig (Cornet); Jon Anderson (Vocals)

Standout Track - Lizard

It took King Crimson about a year to recover from the shellshock of the departure of Ian McDonald shortly after the release of their siesmically good debut album, In The Court Of The Crimson King. McDonald had been the principal songwriter and without him the band struggled to develop a new sense of style or direction. As an interim measure they released In The Wake Of Poseidon (though by that stage vocalist and bassist Greg Lake had already announced he would depart after that album to focus his attentions on the self-indulgent prog excess of supergroup Emerson, Lake & Palmer). It's actually a highly enjoyable album until you realise that literally every song is a carbon copy of a song from their debut - "Pictures Of A City" mimics "21st Century Schizoid Man," "Cadence And Cascade" is "I Talk To The Wind," and so on. By the time the band released Lizard, things had by no means stabilised - the particular band line-up that recorded it would never perform live - but they had managed to sound fresh and inventive again.

By this stage, Crimson has also more or less ceased to operate as a democratic unit as it had on its debut - by now, it is very much Robert Fripp's creative playground, being now in charge of songwriting and playing the mellotron and keyboard parts as well as the guitars. However, Fripp is savvy enough to not allow it to turn into a glorified solo project and, despite his creative dominance, still leaves ample room for the other musicians to showcase themselves. Most notable, of course, is Greg Lake's replacement Gordon Haskell on bass and vocals. Sadly, he doesn't acquit himself particularly well - his vocals are a little too throaty, a little too tame, lacking the alien menace Lake was able to summon on "21st Century Schizoid Man." In Haskell's defence, he found it difficult to really engage with the music, being a big fan of soul music, and left in frustration shortly after the album's release, but it's notable that the album's most memorably catchy vocal melody, the opening section of the epic title track, is given to special guest Jon Anderson of Yes to sing rather than Haskell.

Musically, Fripp moves the album in a direction that, in some ways, makes it arguably the most quintessential prog album of all time. One of the defining thought processes behind prog was the idea of using compositional and performance techniques borrowed from jazz and classical music and applying them to rock music. Never has that mandate been enforced so literally as on Lizard - things are moved in a profoundly more jazz-oriented direction, with some moments sounding nothing like rock music whatsoever. After the initial familiarity of the folksy sing-along chorus of its opening section, the lengthy ensuing "Bolero" section of "Lizard" sees drummer Andy McCulloch maintaining a traditional bolero drum pattern in the vein of Ravel, while guest musicians solo and improvise over the top of it, gradually developing from the classical beauty of Mark Charig's cornet to the chaotic jazz madness of Keith Tippett's piano - incidentally, Tippett's piano solo accurately foresees the avant-garde jazz piano that David Bowie would incorporate into "Aladdin Sane" three years later, the first time the general public became aware of the existence of that kind of music. "Lizard" ultimately builds to a mad cacophony reminiscent of the title track from their debut before collapsing back into the tortured, plaintive guitar wails of Fripp's lament. "Cirkus," too, the nightmarish opening number, is highly jazz-influenced, with Fripp's malevolent walls of Mellotron noise providing a backdrop for soaring improvised saxophone solos and the like.

The album sags in the middle, sadly, with both "Indoor Games" and "Happy Family" doing very little to really capture the attention before the peaceful tranquillity of "Lady Of The Dancing Water" brings things back before the epic title track. Its other great drawback are its lyrics - prog has always been about an attempt to write songs that go further than the simple love ballads of most pop or rock music. Yes would achieve success by writing epics inspired by eastern spiritualism, and Genesis would go for stream-of-consciousness absurdity. Sadly, Lizard, with its lists of circus imagery or the title track's narrative about Prince Rupert and his involvement in the Battle of Glass Tears, pushes things into self-parody. It's a mercy, then, that the music is so refreshingly unusual and committed and different, so as to distract from the nonsense spouting out of Haskell's mouth.

With Lizard, Fripp essentially dictated the future of the band, which is to say that they would never again be a "proper" band. With In The Court Of The Crimson King, there was a chance that they could have gone on to be one of the major mainstream success stories of prog, but the studied weirdness and anti-commerciality of Lizard pretty much confirmed that this band would do whatever they liked. It would be a band dictated by absurdist whims rather than any concession to the idea of success. Unlike Yes, who were able to marry their taste for avant-garde composition and bold new ideas to an understanding of how to make commercially viable music, Crimson would be doomed from hereon to exist on the fringes of avant-garde music. Even when they reformed in the 80s, they refused to go down the "Let's just make pop music now" avenue of Yes and Genesis but rather remodelled themselves as a freakish New Wave band in the mould of Talking Heads. The idea of King Crimson as a functional and successful band was now no longer a dream that could be entertained, but the idea of Crimson as a bizarre musical entity would continue to make fascinating and brilliant music for years to come, even if it was rare for anybody to pay any attention to it.

Track Listing:

All songs written by Robert Fripp and Peter Sinfield.

1. Cirkus

2. Indoor Games

3. Happy Family

4. Lady Of The Dancing Water

5. Lizard