December 10, 1970 - Lizard

My final release of 1970 is the second album of the year by King Crimson, titled "Lizard" and released on December 10, a mere 7 months after "In The Wake Of Poseidon". Guitarist Robert Fripp and lyricist Peter Sinfield were the only remaining members after that release, but several musicians who helped make it would appear on this album. Mel Collins plays full-time saxophone and flute after appearing on two tracks last album, and Gordon Haskell, who sang on "Cadence And Cascade", became the permanent new lead singer, as well as bassist! They also brought in drummer Andy McCulloch to round out the new 5-piece outfit. There are several session musicians that help out as well, including jazz pianist Keith Tippett. A new King Crimson album, and another completely different line-up. Let's see how this one shakes out!

Side one begins with "Cirkus" which has an interesting Mellotron opening. Collins' saxophone sounds great and Fripp switches from Mellotron to guitar. We also hear Haskell, and his singing is decent in this one. After a couple verses there's a great guitar part over top of the saxophone and after another verse we hear a sax solo! After another verse they Fripp plays an even better guitar bit over the sax, and Collins continues his excellent playing by leading a another cool part to end the song. The next track "Indoor Games" opens with the saxophone and Mellotron playing the same riff. Collins adds some cool flute bits as well and after a couple verses they start a new part with some cool electric guitar by Fripp. This moves into a very strange instrumental part with several different instruments taking turns playing short bits. Fripp plays some trippy almost techno sounds on the Mellotron, very experimental. They return to normalcy for one final verse, but the song does end with a weird laugh. Track 3 is titled "Happy Family" which has another trippy Mellotron part to open as well as some erratic piano by Tippett in his usual style. Haskell's voice is distorted and sounds very weird, but there is some great flute and more excellent piano. Collins plays a short flute solo and we hear another extended instrumental part with lots of different sounds. King Crimson are clearly loving exploring some new sounds and the Mellotron makes a lot of crazy stuff possible. Again, they return for apnea last verse. Side one concludes with "Lady Of The Dancing Water" which has a beautiful flute opening. It has Fripp playing some soft acoustic guitar while Haskell softly sings along. Collins plays some saxophone as well but it's his flute that really shines on this short peaceful track.

Side 2 contains only one track, the over 23 minute title track "Lizard", and one of it's four sections is over 11 minutes long. King Crimson are the second band I have to do this, after Pink Floyd made "Atom Heart Mother" the whole first side of that album a couple months ago. The first section features Jon Anderson of Yes on lead vocals, a very cool guest musician. He sings softly along with some cool piano during the verses, but sings more naturally in the chorus where Fripp joins in on guitar. Anderson sings some da-da-da wordless vocals and this first part is pretty tame, but still good. The second part starts around the 4:30 mark and is cued by a very cool sounding trombone riff. This section in particular, but for the rest of the song as well, we hear several session musicians including trombone, oboe, cornet and English horn. The trombone I can pick out but the rest I am guessing at so forgive me if I confuse my instruments. Tippett backs the trombone with some quiet, but very quick piano that goes on for the rest of the part. We hear what I think is an oboe bit, followed by a cornet bit. The adding of even more instruments just shows the ideas Crimson had in their minds. There's a very cool bit with multiple horns as Tippett's background piano continues to be excellent. The oboe returns and we segue into the longest part of the song that itself has three sections within it. King Crimson doubles down on the progressiveness! Another new instrument that I believe to be the English horn starts off this part as Haskell returns to lead vocals. He sings slowly, very similar to his song on their last album. This moves to a new part with some cool drums by McCulloch and Fripp on Mellotron. Collins really lets loose on both saxophone and flute and it sounds awesome. This starts an extended instrumental bit with great contributions from everyone. With so many session musicians they make so many different sounds, an organized chaos that sounds very cool and pretty psychedelic. The saxophone and piano in particular are really going crazy before we finally get to the last part (of this part!) Haskell plays some slow bass in this part as Fripp leads with some trippy guitar. This brings us to the actual final part which features some carousel-like Mellotron by Fripp. There are various other noises as well, and this part slowly speeds up until it's going so fast that the record is over. A pretty cool song I thought, with several interesting parts and so many different sounds!

That is the end of "Lizard" and despite another different line-up, this album still feels like King Crimson. It's very progressive, has lots of Mellotron and they are still making some good experimental rock. Gordon Haskell is no Greg Lake, but no one really is and Haskell performs decently enough on this album. However, I don't believe it comes up to their sophomore release from earlier this year, and most certainly not the spectacular debut. Although this is their worst effort yet in my opinion, it's still an album I'm happy to have in my collection. It is also the last album of the year, and so begins the year-end wrap-up! I have 14 albums from 1970, five more than last year, and a few new bands as well. Making these decisions is getting tougher and tougher.

Favourite song of the year: Wow, there are several candidates that I could mention here and it's very tough to try and pick just one song for the year. With an honourable mention to "Take A Pebble", I think my favourite song of the year was "Warning", off Black Sabbath's debut album. I love each member's work on that song especially some fantastic guitar by Tony Iommi.

Top 5 Albums of the year:

1. Paranoid by Black Sabbath
2. Emerson, Lake & Palmer by Emerson, Lake & Palmer
3. Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath
4. Atom Heart Mother by Pink Floyd
5. Led Zeppelin III by Led Zeppelin

Zeppelin falls down to the fifth spot as 1979 is definitively the year of Black Sabbath. Paranoid is a masterpiece, and their debut is very good as well. The top 3 spots are all new bands, just as they were last year. Who knows what next year will bring? I'll see you in 1971 to find out!