Search - Various Artists :: Schizoid Dimension: King Crimson Tribute

Good mixed with bad

01/05/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I would give this album 3 1/2 stars if I could--it doesn't deserve 4, though. There's bound to be some lousy stuff on a tribute album: Chrome's version of Moonchild is quite possibly worse than the original; Schizoid Man is turned into something you might hear on college radio; and the two versions of Red both pale in comparison to the original. But if you're a Crimson fan, and you listen to this album with an open mind, you might find yourself playing it quite a bit. There's some quality music on here: Controlled Bleeding are competant veteran rockers who skillfully handle Talking Drum (alright die-hards, time to crucify me--I like it as much as the original!); David Cross' Exiles is gorgeous and gives a modern feel to a classic song; Architectural Metaphor are a great modern prog band (or whatever they like to be called these days) who play an atmospheric and textured Cirkus. My three favorite cuts on here are three of the last four: I love what Astralasia (I don't really know a lot of these names either) did with I Talk to the Wind, but it is VERY different from the original, but still relaxing and well played--as I said, go in with an open mind and you will like this more; Xcranium rock the hell out of Cat Food, which is made louder and less jazzy than the original (not necessarily a good thing, but in this case it works, in my opinion); and last but certainly not least, I think Solid Space's version of In the Wake... is (Okay, die-hards, time to drive in those spikes) better than the original. It sounds *exactly* like the original, but more modern and with much better production. Anyway, I think all fans of the band would enjoy this album, and hope I didn't ruffle too many feathers of Crimheads everywhere with my review."

Pretty good, especially by tribute album standards

woburnmusicfan | Woburn, MA United States | 01/10/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Tribute albums tend to be pretty bad. Most bands don't have the cojones to veer from the original arrangements, so you end up with inferior -- but slavish -- remakes of the originals. And if you already have the originals, why would you ever want to listen to inferior remakes?This is a rare tribute album that I've been able to listen to all the way through without visibly cringing. A nice touch is that many of the performers throw in a solid helping of guitar noise, because King Crimson has always been good at tossing in some noise with the melody. The best cuts are the ones that vary most from the originals: the techno-beat takes on "I Talk to the Wind" by Astralasia and "Talking Drum" by Controlled Bleeding are both excellent. David Cross provides a nice take on "Exiles". The songs I found least interesting are the ones that sound most like the originals: Chrome's "Moonchild" and two(!) separate slavish takes on "Red".(1=poor 2=mediocre 3=pretty good 4=very good 5=phenomenal)"