KING CRIMSON — Larks' Tongues In Aspic: The Complete Recordings (review)

KING CRIMSON — Larks' Tongues In Aspic: The Complete Recordings album cover Boxset / Compilation · 2012 · Proto-Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Warthur
As well as providing the album itself in its original mix and in the updated mix by Steven Wilson and Robert Fripp (a fairly tasteful, light update which doesn't mess too much with perfection), this continues the run of Crimson boxed sets which come stuffed with live sets from the relevant lineup.

This box is hampered somewhat by two factors: Jamie Muir really wasn't in the band that long, disappearing shortly after the studio album was done, and the band didn't do many soundboard tapes during this era (the Guildford Civic Hall gig being a happy exception). That means that most of the live sets here hail from audience cassettes, which are somewhat varied in their quality as you might imagine.

Some of them are pretty good - with the Zoom Club and Hull Technical College tapes at least sounding better than Earthbound, and offering full sets. (It helps a lot that the chaotic music that Crimson presents here suffers less from a lo-fi presentation than, say, the material that the Islands-era lineup were performing.) And the Beat Club tape is a live-in-the-TV-studio affair, so that sounds great.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Glasgow Green's Playhouse and Portsmouth Guildhall tapes are really not good - to the point where even the high quality of the music itself couldn't save them as it did with some of the other audience tapes. Still, overall the good outweighs the bad in this collection, and it's well worth it if you love the Larks' Tongues material, want some really massive improvs featuring that lineup, and have a tolerance for sometimes dodgy sound quality.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

The Goblin Sessions Heavy Metal
THEM
Buy this album from MMA partners
Tormenta De Arena Metalcore
VORAGO
Buy this album from MMA partners
Infinite Metalcore
FUTURE GHOST
Buy this album from MMA partners
Heretic Melodic Death Metal
SUNCINDER
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Skull Burned Wearing Hell Like A Life Vest As The Night Wept Mathcore
FRONTIERER
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Future Ghost - Wolves (Official Music Video)
FUTURE GHOST
Bosh66· 1 day ago
Future Ghost - Nemesis Game (Official Music Video)
FUTURE GHOST
Bosh66· 1 day ago
Harrowed TwentyTenVideo
HARROWED
Bosh66· 3 days ago
Sunmancer - Realms of Dilemma (Official Visualizer)
SUNMANCER
Bosh66· 8 days ago
Sunmancer - Lower Cavalier (Official Visualizer)
SUNMANCER
Bosh66· 8 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed