I know what I like: Trollheart's History of Progressive Rock and Progressive Metal

Trollheart · 11-12-2019, 11:36 AM

Album title: Egg
Artist: Egg
Nationality: Egglish, sorry English
Label: Deram
Grade: B
Previous Experience of this Artist: Zero
The Trollheart Factor: 0
Landmark value: I honestly don’t know. I’ll research them later on and see if there’s a need for an article about them, but for now all I can tell you is that they were part of the Canterbury Scene, and that one their members went on to join Hatfield and the North
Tracklisting: Bulb/While Growing My Hair/I Will Be Absorbed/Fugue in D Minor/They Laughed When I Sat Down At the Piano.../The Song of McGillicudie the Pusilllanimous (Or Don’t Worry James, Your Socks Are Hanging In the Cellar with Thomas/Boilk/Symphony No. 2 (i) Movement 1 (ii) Movement 2(iii) Blane (iv) Movement 4/Seven is a Jolly Good Time/You Are All Princes
Comments: Look at some of those titles! Well, “Bulb” is nothing; a few seconds of sound effect, might be bass piano notes or something, so I couldn’t really count that as a song, then things get going properly with “While Growing My Hair”, which is a bouncy, almost at times waltzy tune running on thick organ work and a vocal which is almost declaimed. Very seventies prog here for sure. Good start. “I Will Be Absorbed” sounds like a warning about the Borg from Star Trek, and gives me an impression of having a sort of vaguely soul feel to it. Great work on the mellotron; always good to hear that. I kind of think of that as the true sound of progressive rock.

Next up is a rendition of that Bach favourite (who doesn’t love a good fugue from time to time?)

and shows what Dave Stewart can do on the organ, then at the piano in the next track, though it’s very short, just over a minute and into that weirdly named track which I’m not going to write out again. This is a very intense, almost chaotic trip on the mellotron with a fast delivery on the vocal. Song’s almost as crazy in its execution as its title. “Boilk” is just another minute of nonsense then they go all epic for the close with a twenty-two minute symphony which seems to open on xylophone or something for about two before they throw in a fucking ROCKING version of Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” and things really get going.

It’s of course very organ-driven (I don’t think Egg had a guitar player, at least none is listed) so it’s pretty much keys all the way. “Movement 2” seems to link in the bass and percussion to a sprightly piano melody, but you could almost say the drums take over here. Goes into a kind of slow marching rhythm about halfway through, almost “Iron Man”, though not quite. I have no idea why “Movement 3” is called “Blane”, but it is. Though there’s no guitar it sounds like one, and I see they used a thing called a “tone generator”, whatever that may be, so maybe that’s what sounds like guitar screeching. It’s pretty freaky and I guess would have been quite experimental and out-there for 1970.

As you’d expect of course this is instrumental, being a symphony as such, but it is pretty clever how they make it sound like there is a guitar, especially in the fourth movement. It’s a long piece, but doesn’t really seem so. Vocals are back then for Egg’s only single, “Seven is a Jolly Good Time” (whatever that means; they seem to have their own language and idioms which confuse me) and it’s a bit sixties pop really, not that great to be honest, but quite short, and we end on “You Are All Princes”. I’d have to admit that Egg are a much better band without the vocals; they just seem a little, I don’t know, superfluous most of the time.

Favourite track(s): While Growing My Hair/I Will Be Absorbed/Fugue in D Minor, Symphony No. 2
Least favourite track(s): Boilk, Seven is a Jolly Good Time
Overall impression: Great work on the keys, but really without that Egg would be nothing. Good album but I can see why they only had very limited success, also why they were welcome at the Canterbury Scene. Quite a jam/freak-out style here.
Personal Rating:

Legacy Rating:

Final Rating:

**Frownland** · 11-12-2019, 11:41 AM

What's the difference between Landmark Value and Legacy Rating?

Trollheart · 11-12-2019, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frownland

What's the difference between Landmark Value and Legacy Rating?

Well, Landmark Value is a written piece, laying out how important the band or artist or album was to prog. Legacy Rating is a rating 1-5 of the same thing, but allows me to score an album both on how much I liked, or didn't like it, as well as how it is perceived in the prog world, with the average of both being the actual rating.

Basically, one is an explanation of the album/artist's position in prog, the other helps rate it.

And I have Legacy Rating so that the rating isn't skewed, so if I listen to, say, an ELP album and hate it, but I know it was still important to the genre and in the history of prog, I can allow it to be fairly rated, not just as to whether I personally liked it or not.

The Batlord · 11-12-2019, 02:27 PM

Trollheart · 11-12-2019, 08:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Batlord

We thank you for your valuable contribution.
Now **** off.

Trollheart · 11-13-2019, 06:24 AM

Album title: Benefit
Artist: Jethro Tull
Nationality: English
Label: Chrysalis/Island
Chronology: Third
Grade: B
Previous Experience of this Artist: Just the first album I listened to. Think I heard Heavy Horses a few years back too. No, I haven’t heard Aqualung or Thick As a Brick, not yet anyway.
The Trollheart Factor: 3
Landmark value: Coming on the heels of their second, chart-breaking album (why wasn’t that on my frigging list? Dammit!) this seems to have underwhelmed the critics (but what do they know anyway?) while capitalising on Tull’s sterling performance in the charts. This hit the top five in the UK, Germany and Scandinavia, and almost scraped into the top ten in the US. So not bad.
Tracklisting: With You There to Help Me/Nothing to Say/Alive and Well and Living In/Son/For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me/To Cry You a Song/A Time for Everything?/Inside/Play in Time/Sossity; You’re a Woman
Comments: Of course we kick off with the damn flute! Slow, medieval style, very folky as we launch into “With You There to Help Me” then it kicks up with some decent guitar. “Nothing to Say” reminds me of early Kansas somehow, quite guitar-driven, don’t hear any flute in this so far. Not a bad song at all. Is it prog? Meh, I would say not. But we’re only two tracks in - and there’s that thrice-damned flute again! - so we’ve a ways to go before we would pronounce any such verdict. Piano leads in “Alive and Well and Living In” and here comes the flute of course. Got a kind of Yes feel to this one, pretty short but quite heavy, then ELO must have been listening to Tull as “Son” sounds a lot like their later material. It’s also a short track, just over two minutes.

“For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me” has a nice gentle acoustic guitar lead-in, might be a ballad. Kind of. Quite medieval again, zero flute which is good. Damn I hate that flute. I’ve said that before, haven’t I? I’m saying it again. I find “To Cry You a Song” very much more in the blues/hard rock mould of the likes of Zep than anything really prog, A bit too long for what it is, then “ A Time for Everything?” is similar, sort of, but with added flute. “Inside” is short enough, a more uptempo one while “Play in Time” gives me a kind of boogie feel, very bouncy but again is it prog? At this point, I’d have to say no. The album then closes on “Sossity; You’re a Woman”, which at least has a nice keyboard line underpinning it. But you know, yawn.

Favourite track(s): I have to be honest: I don’t like anything here, and that’s not just because I’m already biased towards Jethro Tull. Nothing grabbed me and I was as bored as a man listening to a party political broadcast in Italian. Who doesn’t speak Italian.
Least favourite track(s):
Overall impression: A big, fat, greasy meh and a spreading of the hands: why? Why are these guys considered prog? Do not get it.
Personal Rating:

Legacy Rating:

Final Rating:

Trollheart · 11-13-2019, 11:20 AM

Album title: Yeti
Artist: Amon Duul II
Nationality: German
Label: Liberty
Chronology: Second
Grade: A
Previous Experience of this Artist: Their debut album
The Trollheart Factor: 2
Landmark value: According to one commentator, not only the cornerstone of Amon Duul II’s career, but of the entire krautrock movement. Quite a statement.
Tracklisting: Soap Shop Rock (i) Burning Sister (ii) Halluzination Guilltoine {iii) Gulp a Sonata (iv) Flesh-Coloured Anti-Aircraft Alarm/ She Came Through the Chimney/Archangel Thunderbird/ Cerberus/ The Return of Rübezahl/ Eye-shaking King/ Pale Gallery/Yeti/Yeti Talks to Yogi/Sandoz in the Rain
Comments: A double album, clocking in at just over the hour mark, I feel much of this may be improvised jams, but we’ll see. I’m not familiar enough with krautrock to know what to expect. The first track, as you can see from the listing above, is a sort of suite, and the first part of that, “Burning Sister” puts me very much in mind of Hawkwind, while the second, “Halluzination Guillotine” is a slower, more moody crunching type with some fine guitar work. A very short kind of interlude next and then it’s on to the weirdly-titled “Flesh-Coloured Anti-Aircraft Alarm.” Indeed. All very jammy and freak-out, man.

Things slow down for the first time with “She Came Through the Chimney” which has a really nice soft guitar line and some flute or horns going, think it may be an instrumental. Yeah it was. The next one goes right back to the rocking freak-out, and seems to involve a female vocal which I personally find awful, but, you know… Seems like “Cerberus” isn’t a lot different musically, though it seems too to be an instrumental, nothing like “She Came Through the Chimney” however; much rockier and jammier. A short one then for “The Return of Rübezahl” before we’re into “Eye-Shaking King” with shimmers with a pounding, savage guitar line before settling down and on almost without pause into “Pale Gallery”.

This takes us to what was side three of the double-album, taken up entirely at the time by an eighteen-minute improvisational title track, which seems to blend ambient, psychedelic and space rock influences, and I just have the impression that, even at eighteen minutes, there ain’t gonna be no singing parts. It’s certainly not broken up into sections like “Soap Shop Rock” was, and seems to be a chance for the guys to show off what they can do on their instruments, which is a lot. It’s pretty damn good, to be fair.

“Yeti Talks to Yogi” seems to just retread this idea, almost an extension of the improvisational eighteen-minute track, and then we close on a soft, Santanaesque “Sandoz in the Rain” with a lot of bongos and flutes. Far out, man!

Favourite track(s): She Came Through the Chimney/Yeti (improvisation)/Sandoz in the Rain
Least favourite track(s): Nothing I hated, but the rest was kind of meh to me
Overall impression: Perhaps krautrock won’t be for me, but if these guys were the key to it, then you have to give them props. Personally though I was mostly bored by this album.
Personal Rating:

Legacy Rating:

Final Rating:

**Frownland** · 11-13-2019, 01:38 PM

I really love the harmonies on Benefit, but ja I never really understood why Tull is considered a prog band.

**Frownland** · 11-13-2019, 04:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elphenor

even this is a "I know what I like" wtf is with bringing up Syd's fantastic solo album just to rep the mediocre (by Floyd standards) Shine on you Crazy Diamond

Because Syd's story is pretty relevant to the content of WYWH and Dark Side, which are pretty landmark albums for prog

Trollheart · 11-13-2019, 07:16 PM

Album title: In the Wake of Poseidon
Artist: King Crimson
Nationality: English
Label: Island
Chronology: Third
Grade: A
Previous Experience of this Artist: Two albums to date
The Trollheart Factor: 4
Landmark value: King Crimson’s most successful album, and their second this year. Looks like they just barely avoided hiring one Elton John as their singer when Greg Lake left. How different might pop, and prog music have been if that had happened!
Tracklisting: Peace - A Beginning/ Pictures of a City (including 42nd at Treadmill)/ Cadence and Cascade/ In the Wake of Poseidon (including Libra’s theme)/Peace - A Theme/Cat Food/The Devil’s Triangle (i) Merday Morn (ii) Hand of Sceiron (iii) Garden of Worm/ Peace - An End
Comments: A very short (less than a minute) acapella intro, like a hymn or psalm, opens the album then “Pictures of a City” rocks out with a very jazzy feel in its striding, swaggering horns and the vocal melody sounds like something off the debut, perhaps the title track. Also kind of echoes Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man”, released the same year. It’s quite frenetic later, but the quiet bass part in about the sixth minute is cool. Chaotic ending then “Cadence and Cascade” slows everything down nicely with a pastoral little ballad, before the title track comes in on a majestic overture and then runs for nearly eight and a half minutes with a sort of Celtic feel to it. Really nice. Actually, stunning. Superb. And other things beginning with s.

There’s a reprise of “Peace” from the opener, this time as an instrumental, then “Cat Food” was apparently a - successful - single for them from this album, very jazzy with some great piano and foreshadowing the kind of thing Spock’s Beard would be playing two decades later. the longest track, an actual suite, is “The Devil’s Triangle”, an eleven-and-a-half minute instrumental broken into three sections. The first cheekily gives the finger to the estate of Gustav Holst, which refused Fripp permission to use “Mars, the Bringer of War” in his music, so he just rearranged it quite cleverly here. They also use a snippet of the chorus from In the Court of the Crimson King. Totally epic. Ends then on one more reprise of “Peace”.

Favourite track(s): Cadence and Cascade/In the Wake of Poseidon/The Devil’s Triangle
Least favourite track(s): n/a
Overall impression: Superb album, not really any flaws. The shorter tracks are almost negligible slightly lower points, but there’s nothing really on this I don’t like.
Personal Rating:

Legacy Rating:

Final Rating:

11-12-2019, 11:36 AM	#161 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,994	Album title: Egg Artist: Egg Nationality: Egglish, sorry English Label: Deram Grade: B Previous Experience of this Artist: Zero The Trollheart Factor: 0 Landmark value: I honestly don’t know. I’ll research them later on and see if there’s a need for an article about them, but for now all I can tell you is that they were part of the Canterbury Scene, and that one their members went on to join Hatfield and the North Tracklisting: Bulb/While Growing My Hair/I Will Be Absorbed/Fugue in D Minor/They Laughed When I Sat Down At the Piano.../The Song of McGillicudie the Pusilllanimous (Or Don’t Worry James, Your Socks Are Hanging In the Cellar with Thomas/Boilk/Symphony No. 2 (i) Movement 1 (ii) Movement 2(iii) Blane (iv) Movement 4/Seven is a Jolly Good Time/You Are All Princes Comments: Look at some of those titles! Well, “Bulb” is nothing; a few seconds of sound effect, might be bass piano notes or something, so I couldn’t really count that as a song, then things get going properly with “While Growing My Hair”, which is a bouncy, almost at times waltzy tune running on thick organ work and a vocal which is almost declaimed. Very seventies prog here for sure. Good start. “I Will Be Absorbed” sounds like a warning about the Borg from Star Trek, and gives me an impression of having a sort of vaguely soul feel to it. Great work on the mellotron; always good to hear that. I kind of think of that as the true sound of progressive rock. Next up is a rendition of that Bach favourite (who doesn’t love a good fugue from time to time?) and shows what Dave Stewart can do on the organ, then at the piano in the next track, though it’s very short, just over a minute and into that weirdly named track which I’m not going to write out again. This is a very intense, almost chaotic trip on the mellotron with a fast delivery on the vocal. Song’s almost as crazy in its execution as its title. “Boilk” is just another minute of nonsense then they go all epic for the close with a twenty-two minute symphony which seems to open on xylophone or something for about two before they throw in a fucking ROCKING version of Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” and things really get going. It’s of course very organ-driven (I don’t think Egg had a guitar player, at least none is listed) so it’s pretty much keys all the way. “Movement 2” seems to link in the bass and percussion to a sprightly piano melody, but you could almost say the drums take over here. Goes into a kind of slow marching rhythm about halfway through, almost “Iron Man”, though not quite. I have no idea why “Movement 3” is called “Blane”, but it is. Though there’s no guitar it sounds like one, and I see they used a thing called a “tone generator”, whatever that may be, so maybe that’s what sounds like guitar screeching. It’s pretty freaky and I guess would have been quite experimental and out-there for 1970. As you’d expect of course this is instrumental, being a symphony as such, but it is pretty clever how they make it sound like there is a guitar, especially in the fourth movement. It’s a long piece, but doesn’t really seem so. Vocals are back then for Egg’s only single, “Seven is a Jolly Good Time” (whatever that means; they seem to have their own language and idioms which confuse me) and it’s a bit sixties pop really, not that great to be honest, but quite short, and we end on “You Are All Princes”. I’d have to admit that Egg are a much better band without the vocals; they just seem a little, I don’t know, superfluous most of the time. Favourite track(s): While Growing My Hair/I Will Be Absorbed/Fugue in D Minor, Symphony No. 2 Least favourite track(s): Boilk, Seven is a Jolly Good Time Overall impression: Great work on the keys, but really without that Egg would be nothing. Good album but I can see why they only had very limited success, also why they were welcome at the Canterbury Scene. Quite a jam/freak-out style here. Personal Rating: Legacy Rating: Final Rating: __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

11-12-2019, 11:41 AM	#162 (permalink)
Frownland SOPHIE FOREVER Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: East of the Southern North American West Posts: 35,541	What's the difference between Landmark Value and Legacy Rating? __________________ Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth. d e a f b o x

11-13-2019, 06:24 AM	#166 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,994	Album title: Benefit Artist: Jethro Tull Nationality: English Label: Chrysalis/Island Chronology: Third Grade: B Previous Experience of this Artist: Just the first album I listened to. Think I heard Heavy Horses a few years back too. No, I haven’t heard Aqualung or Thick As a Brick, not yet anyway. The Trollheart Factor: 3 Landmark value: Coming on the heels of their second, chart-breaking album (why wasn’t that on my frigging list? Dammit!) this seems to have underwhelmed the critics (but what do they know anyway?) while capitalising on Tull’s sterling performance in the charts. This hit the top five in the UK, Germany and Scandinavia, and almost scraped into the top ten in the US. So not bad. Tracklisting: With You There to Help Me/Nothing to Say/Alive and Well and Living In/Son/For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me/To Cry You a Song/A Time for Everything?/Inside/Play in Time/Sossity; You’re a Woman Comments: Of course we kick off with the damn flute! Slow, medieval style, very folky as we launch into “With You There to Help Me” then it kicks up with some decent guitar. “Nothing to Say” reminds me of early Kansas somehow, quite guitar-driven, don’t hear any flute in this so far. Not a bad song at all. Is it prog? Meh, I would say not. But we’re only two tracks in - and there’s that thrice-damned flute again! - so we’ve a ways to go before we would pronounce any such verdict. Piano leads in “Alive and Well and Living In” and here comes the flute of course. Got a kind of Yes feel to this one, pretty short but quite heavy, then ELO must have been listening to Tull as “Son” sounds a lot like their later material. It’s also a short track, just over two minutes. “For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me” has a nice gentle acoustic guitar lead-in, might be a ballad. Kind of. Quite medieval again, zero flute which is good. Damn I hate that flute. I’ve said that before, haven’t I? I’m saying it again. I find “To Cry You a Song” very much more in the blues/hard rock mould of the likes of Zep than anything really prog, A bit too long for what it is, then “ A Time for Everything?” is similar, sort of, but with added flute. “Inside” is short enough, a more uptempo one while “Play in Time” gives me a kind of boogie feel, very bouncy but again is it prog? At this point, I’d have to say no. The album then closes on “Sossity; You’re a Woman”, which at least has a nice keyboard line underpinning it. But you know, yawn. Favourite track(s): I have to be honest: I don’t like anything here, and that’s not just because I’m already biased towards Jethro Tull. Nothing grabbed me and I was as bored as a man listening to a party political broadcast in Italian. Who doesn’t speak Italian. Least favourite track(s): Overall impression: A big, fat, greasy meh and a spreading of the hands: why? Why are these guys considered prog? Do not get it. Personal Rating: Legacy Rating: Final Rating: __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

11-13-2019, 11:20 AM	#167 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,994	Album title: Yeti Artist: Amon Duul II Nationality: German Label: Liberty Chronology: Second Grade: A Previous Experience of this Artist: Their debut album The Trollheart Factor: 2 Landmark value: According to one commentator, not only the cornerstone of Amon Duul II’s career, but of the entire krautrock movement. Quite a statement. Tracklisting: Soap Shop Rock (i) Burning Sister (ii) Halluzination Guilltoine {iii) Gulp a Sonata (iv) Flesh-Coloured Anti-Aircraft Alarm/ She Came Through the Chimney/Archangel Thunderbird/ Cerberus/ The Return of Rübezahl/ Eye-shaking King/ Pale Gallery/Yeti/Yeti Talks to Yogi/Sandoz in the Rain Comments: A double album, clocking in at just over the hour mark, I feel much of this may be improvised jams, but we’ll see. I’m not familiar enough with krautrock to know what to expect. The first track, as you can see from the listing above, is a sort of suite, and the first part of that, “Burning Sister” puts me very much in mind of Hawkwind, while the second, “Halluzination Guillotine” is a slower, more moody crunching type with some fine guitar work. A very short kind of interlude next and then it’s on to the weirdly-titled “Flesh-Coloured Anti-Aircraft Alarm.” Indeed. All very jammy and freak-out, man. Things slow down for the first time with “She Came Through the Chimney” which has a really nice soft guitar line and some flute or horns going, think it may be an instrumental. Yeah it was. The next one goes right back to the rocking freak-out, and seems to involve a female vocal which I personally find awful, but, you know… Seems like “Cerberus” isn’t a lot different musically, though it seems too to be an instrumental, nothing like “She Came Through the Chimney” however; much rockier and jammier. A short one then for “The Return of Rübezahl” before we’re into “Eye-Shaking King” with shimmers with a pounding, savage guitar line before settling down and on almost without pause into “Pale Gallery”. This takes us to what was side three of the double-album, taken up entirely at the time by an eighteen-minute improvisational title track, which seems to blend ambient, psychedelic and space rock influences, and I just have the impression that, even at eighteen minutes, there ain’t gonna be no singing parts. It’s certainly not broken up into sections like “Soap Shop Rock” was, and seems to be a chance for the guys to show off what they can do on their instruments, which is a lot. It’s pretty damn good, to be fair. “Yeti Talks to Yogi” seems to just retread this idea, almost an extension of the improvisational eighteen-minute track, and then we close on a soft, Santanaesque “Sandoz in the Rain” with a lot of bongos and flutes. Far out, man! Favourite track(s): She Came Through the Chimney/Yeti (improvisation)/Sandoz in the Rain Least favourite track(s): Nothing I hated, but the rest was kind of meh to me Overall impression: Perhaps krautrock won’t be for me, but if these guys were the key to it, then you have to give them props. Personally though I was mostly bored by this album. Personal Rating: Legacy Rating: Final Rating: __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

11-13-2019, 01:38 PM	#168 (permalink)
Frownland SOPHIE FOREVER Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: East of the Southern North American West Posts: 35,541	I really love the harmonies on Benefit, but ja I never really understood why Tull is considered a prog band. __________________ Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth. d e a f b o x

11-13-2019, 07:16 PM	#170 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,994	Album title: In the Wake of Poseidon Artist: King Crimson Nationality: English Label: Island Chronology: Third Grade: A Previous Experience of this Artist: Two albums to date The Trollheart Factor: 4 Landmark value: King Crimson’s most successful album, and their second this year. Looks like they just barely avoided hiring one Elton John as their singer when Greg Lake left. How different might pop, and prog music have been if that had happened! Tracklisting: Peace - A Beginning/ Pictures of a City (including 42nd at Treadmill)/ Cadence and Cascade/ In the Wake of Poseidon (including Libra’s theme)/Peace - A Theme/Cat Food/The Devil’s Triangle (i) Merday Morn (ii) Hand of Sceiron (iii) Garden of Worm/ Peace - An End Comments: A very short (less than a minute) acapella intro, like a hymn or psalm, opens the album then “Pictures of a City” rocks out with a very jazzy feel in its striding, swaggering horns and the vocal melody sounds like something off the debut, perhaps the title track. Also kind of echoes Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man”, released the same year. It’s quite frenetic later, but the quiet bass part in about the sixth minute is cool. Chaotic ending then “Cadence and Cascade” slows everything down nicely with a pastoral little ballad, before the title track comes in on a majestic overture and then runs for nearly eight and a half minutes with a sort of Celtic feel to it. Really nice. Actually, stunning. Superb. And other things beginning with s. There’s a reprise of “Peace” from the opener, this time as an instrumental, then “Cat Food” was apparently a - successful - single for them from this album, very jazzy with some great piano and foreshadowing the kind of thing Spock’s Beard would be playing two decades later. the longest track, an actual suite, is “The Devil’s Triangle”, an eleven-and-a-half minute instrumental broken into three sections. The first cheekily gives the finger to the estate of Gustav Holst, which refused Fripp permission to use “Mars, the Bringer of War” in his music, so he just rearranged it quite cleverly here. They also use a snippet of the chorus from In the Court of the Crimson King. Totally epic. Ends then on one more reprise of “Peace”. Favourite track(s): Cadence and Cascade/In the Wake of Poseidon/The Devil’s Triangle Least favourite track(s): n/a Overall impression: Superb album, not really any flaws. The shorter tracks are almost negligible slightly lower points, but there’s nothing really on this I don’t like. Personal Rating: Legacy Rating: Final Rating: __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018