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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Underated, December 4, 2002
Curious album, this. Listeners and critics disagree about King Crimson's second offering. Many call it a sub-standard copy of debut, Court of the Crimson King (1969); others, erm, didn't.
There are admittedly quite a lot of similarities between the tw o, both musically and stylistically. In fact each song on Court... has a sort of sibling on In The Wake of Poseidon, though I cant possibly imagine why that should be seen as formulaic music making.
For King Crimson beginners, this particular incarnat ion of the group (Lake, McDonald, Giles, Fripp) was no-holds-barred, meat-and-potatoes progressive rock plain and simple: storybook lyrics, pompous orchestrations, classical influences and - just discernible - a smidgen of late 60s psy chadelia. Oh, and a lot of Mellotron. I love it. Most importantly the songwriting is for the most part, spot on. Cat Food and Cadence and Cascade are superb, while the title track is, like its counterpart Court of the Crimson King, a glorious piece of work (they REALLY don't make them like that anymore). It's Side 2 which taxes some listeners' patience to breaking point. An instrumental 5-part epic track the Devil's Triangle is modelled on the theme from Holst's Planets (Mars), and it rocks big-time. A great, dark, brooding drama depicting scenes of a scale limited only by your imagination. And theres quiet, gentle bits, too, to restore sanity and give you the chance to wipe the sweat and froth from your anguished, contorted features.
To sum up, Wake of Poseidon may not have had the commercial impact of its predecessor but its an album with bucketloads of personality and ye-olde-curiosity-shoppe charm. The musics quite good, too..
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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Crimson King's Younger Brother, November 9, 1999
By A Customer
This album is sort of a younger brother to "In the Court of the Crimson King". The cover is pretty cool, too! Although I liked their 1st album better, I think this is a great album. As for Philip Welsh and Ivan Mufti who left negative reviews, they probably would prefer listening to more "talented musicians" like Marilyn Manson and the Spice Girls! (That was sarcasm, folks!)Side 1 starts with the Peace theme and segues into "Pictures of a City", which sounds like the kid brother of "Schizoid" with its loud guitars and brassy sax! "Cadence and Cascade" sounds like "I Talk to the Wind" (although it could've used Greg Lake again). The title track sounds like "Epitath" with its mellotron and the simmilar melody (Em-D-C-B). Side 2 is where this album takes a life of its own, with the very pretty "Peace" (a 2nd version- an acoustic guitar piece) followed by the lyrically witty and wry and musically rocking "Cat Food". "The Devil's Triangle" is bizarre and eerie (with a recording of the title track of "In the Court of the Crimson King" thrown in for good measure!). Fianlly, the album ends hopefully with a final reprise of "Peace".
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A strong and focused crimson effort, December 18, 2002
Following in the footsteps of King Crimson's acclaimed debut, "In the Wake of Poseidon" is often vastly overshadowed by its revolutionary predecessor. All too often criticized and degraded for sounding too much like Crimson's preceding effort, "In the Wake of Poseidon" was never really given a fair chance to be judged on its own terms. Now that the then fresh impact of "In the Court of the Crimson King" is decades behind us, it's a wonder that "In the Wake of Poseidon" was not better received. When listening to it now, the album actually holds up significantly better in comparison to Crim's rather half-hearted debut. While "In the Court of the Crimson King" seemed to lack focus and meander far too much, Robert Fripp's almost full control of the band for its second outing adds cohesiveness and conciseness to the CD making for a much stronger, complete statement. Even though the song structures of the two CDs may be strikingly similar at times, "Pictures of a City" is strongly reminiscent of "21st Century Schizoid Man" and the title track sounds like a not so distant cousin of "Epitaph", Fripp's solo guidance and individual thought process allows the album to follow a much more linear series of events that creates a distinctly climactic atmosphere throughout the album and provides a definite overall focus or theme that was badly lacking from the band's previous effort. Gaining intensity with every track, the raw tensions and emotions are held together by transitional "peace" interludes and as the album builds its velocity and momentum it finally climaxes with the manic string piece "The Devil's Triangle". Every song encapsulates a wide range of evocative imagery and flowing, crescendos and decrescendos enough to make each one a detailed, full standalone idea that not only aids the creation of the album as a whole, but stands as being more developed individually than past works as well. That is where the seeming true goal of "In the Wake of Poseidon" can be found. Whether it was due to something as complex as Fripp's almost fastidious drive to achieve perfection in his work or simply a desire to finish what the band had begun, "In the Wake of Poseidon" was not a copy of the first album but a completion of it. Many of the ideas presented on "In the Court of the Crimson King" seemed half finished or held back but when these same ideas were taken and fleshed out and fully developed, they turned into the CD that should've been King Crimson's proper debut to begin with. Although "In the Wake of Poseidon" didn't necessarily break any new ground for King Crimson, I think it is almost unquestionably a stronger album than the CD it draws upon and the consistently high song quality should really be more than enough to warrant one's attention.
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