Saturday, April 20, 2013

**** Islands by King Crimson - Excellent Progressive Rock from One of the Genre’s Founders


Compared to In The Court of the Crimson King, and even In The Wake of Poseidon; Islands definitely measures up.  The band was essentially playing in the style of their earlier hits when they made this one.  If that was their aim, then I would have to say that they accomplished their aim.  Notice that the volume isn’t cranked on this one, and that is the sound of music before we had compressors.  I personally am fed up with the prevalence of compressors.  I think that they take away all the dynamic from music, and spoil it just to be loud.  In my opinion, if I want my music loud, then I’ll just turn up the volume, and there is no need to compress anything.

If you want to know where bands like Dream Theater and so many others got their sonic ideas, bands like King Crimson and Return to Forever were definitely influential to their sound.

Also, you may notice that I essentially wrote the same review for both Lark’s Tongues and Islands.  That is because I felt that the music of both of these cds is very similar.  Which is not to say that these albums are identical, but in my opinion, by the instrumental music alone, one would not be able to tell perhaps an unreleased B-side one of these cds from the other.  They are essentially the same in greatness. 

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