King Crimson - Ladies of the Road (Special Edition)

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Free Music Notes for Ladies of the Road (Special Edition)

Free Music Review: Makes the Music Come Alive
Hit: 5 Stars

Now, through the magic of aging fans with disposable incomes, Robert Fripp has put together some of the live tracks of this Crimson, and I am impressed.

The shows are from the Zoom Club in Frankfurt, and give us a band that was tighter than I imagined, better focused than I imagined, and funnier than I imagined. In fact, LOR displays some actual humor in its selection of Prog Crime solos from "21st Century Schziod Man," and in some of the liner notes.

This music comes alive outside of the studio, and I think I prefer the versions here to the ones I've been listening to on the album these last 30 years.

The sound quality too, is excellent, especially in comparsion to the risible awfulness of "Earthbound," which besides having the cache of being an import album with a cool cover, was useless and confusing.

Some standouts: Pictures of City, played tight, edgy, showcasing Mel Collin's saxophones and unision riffing.

Sailor's Tale: Fripp at his 1970's best, intelligent, fiery, contained.

Cirkus: Boz sings well on this ulta-proggy song from "Lizard." Let the Mellotron rule! Excellent dynamics for a live album here.

My vote for the most underrate Crimson player: Ian Wallace who on LOR drums with art, force, and taste.

Disappointments: I would like to have heard the entire blues version of COTKC. My CD was flawed, in that the second disk was a duplicate of the first, however this has been amended.

For the King Crimson fan, this disk is a welcome rehabilitation of a band that no one had much regard for. We expect brilliance from the 1972-74 KC, but this gives that band a run for it's money.

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