I have entered into the forbidden. For the past year or so, I have been listening to King Crimson, a band that I once avoided due that I couldn't stand the word "Prog." Prejudice is an ugly thing to have in one's life, but in my fashion, I slowly started listening to the first five King Crimson albums and realized that I enjoy the music due to the intensity of the band's playing, but also their compositional streak. In a way, it reminds me of Duke Ellington, not in style, but the fact that Robert Fripp has firm control of the band, but yet allows each musician to participate in the overall sound of the project on hand. "THRAK" is the only album I have that features guitarist and lyricist Adrian Belew in the King Crimson line up.
"THRAK" is a right name for this album, because that is what it sounds like. It's a tense, textural record with incredible percussion flourishes, but also the intensity of the guitars riffing against each other, but with the overall approach of Fripp's soundscaping, that in a sense is the foundation of this work. Of the King Crimson albums I own and listened to, "THRAK" is by far the heaviest due to the force of the instrumentals and some of the vocal works. As usual, I think the weak link to King Crimson is the lyrics. Whatever it is by Belew or others, it seems to be second thought compared to the sound of the music.
Moreover, it's the sound of the recording and arrangements that give it a full sonic plate. The beauty of Fripp and company is that they do look back, but always go forward. The unique line up of a double trio or having two percussionists (Pat Mastelotto & Bill Bruford), two bassists (Tony Levin & Trey Gunn), two guitarists (Fripp & Belew), is that it's not a mess, but again, like an Ellington big band, it fits the entire motif of the big sound.
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