Red- King Crimson

King Crimson- Red (1974)

Rating: 15

"Sundown/dazzling day/Gold through my eyes/But my eyes turned within/Only see"

Best Song: Starless

Worst Song: Fallen Angel

       Christmas morning. I opened up a moderately small present to reveal the 2012 5.1 edition of Larks Tongue's in Aspic and the 2009 5.1 edition of... this. Wow, where do I start? I've never been a fan of King Crimson. I only liked their first album. But then I saw the 5.1 remasters, and I decided to give them a try. I had already heard Larks Tongues in Aspic, and that had scared me half to death. But I had never heard Red.
       So I popped this baby into my DVD player and started it up. Immediately, I was hit by an amazing wall of distortion that was the title track. Everything in the mix was distorted even the bass. There were seemingly billions of Guitars yelling around me, and then there was a cello, and then the song ended. Needless to say, I was blown away, and decided nothing on the album could be better than that wall of noise.
       Sadly, when the next song, "Fallen Angel" came on, I thought it was great, but it really wasn't as good as the last. Then came on an absolutely amazing song called "One More Red Nightmare," This was even better than "Red," and had me wondering what could be better than that. "Providence," was pretty good, but not as good as the last song. It was no question, the weirdest, but I still really liked it.
       Then... "Starless" came on. If you haven't heard that song, drop absolutely everything you're doing and listen to it right now. That has to be one of the top 6 songs that I have ever heard. The pacing is fantastic, and I have absolutely zero complaints about it. It is the greatest heavy prog song of all time.
       Overall, this is an amazing album. Go out and buy it today!

Brian Eno- Another Green World

Another Green World (1975)- Brian Eno 3

Rating: 12

"In The Blue, August Moon"

Best Song: St. Elmo's Fire

Worst Song: Little Fishes

Feb 2013 Update: Wow This Grew on Me. Read my review of it when I gave it a 7.5, but now I really enjoy most of it

     Ok, let's start with a moderately obscure album. This is an album by former Roxy Music band member Brian Eno. Him and Roxy band leader Bryan Ferry made a more experimental version of Glam Rock in the first two Roxy albums. Brian Eno left in 1973 to pursue a solo career, and he went on to become a producer for popular bands such as U2, The Talking Heads, David Bowie, and Devo.
     His first two albums, Here Come The Warm Jets and Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) were released in 1973 and 1974 to moderate critical acclaim. At some point, I'll review those, but first I'll have to pick those ones up and give them a few more listens. Anyway, Warm Jets was more of a Glam Rock music album then what he would become in the 80s. Tiger Mountain showed signs of a coming change, but it was still a ways off until he finally became and pioneered a new Genre: Ambient.
     Enough about Brian's history, let's get on to the album! This albums is a combination of almost soft rock and ambient, but he had still not completed his full ambient "transformation" so the ambient isn't in full force (Except for a few songs, and I'll get to that later)
     The album opens up with a song called "Sky Saw" which is a combination of some softer glam rock and his strange, but signature synths. Then "Over Fire Island" is almost the same idea, just a bit more boring. The third song, however is one of the best songs he would record and probably the greatest combination of Ambient/Soft Rock he'd ever record. The next two songs, "In Dark Trees" and "The Big Ship" are part of what I call "The Ambient Duo" as these songs are very ambient and mood setting. The tree one gives you feelings of paranoia and somebody watching you, while "The Big Ship" feels like a ship slowly coming over the horizon line and landing in a dock.
     "I'll Come Running" is a nice song, but not a standout, and the title track is a relative throwaway that kind of sums up the album in 1:30. The second half of the album is not great, but still okay, as most of the tracks here are ambient and the ones that are not are moderately boring. While nothing is particularly "bad", only "St. Elmo's Fire" stands out among the 14 songs. Still, it's a nice listen, and if you want to start listening to ambient, the ambients on here are a good starting point.