Starless and Bible Black

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Customer reviews

review by: Ken Grew date: 2008-02-05 rating:
Great, but not their best
In the 70's I loved this album. Super ballads, heavy & very complex elsewhere. ALWAYS played brilliantly. However I wont give it 5 stars because you should get the double CD The Nightwatch instead.

As other reviewers have said, most of Starless... was live & included within The Nightwatch & the latter has additional, exhilarating stuff. Cant recommend the Nightwatch highly enough, its the best Crim album of that era, unless you are a saddo like me & care to get The Great Deceiver 4 cd boxset of staggering live performances.

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review by: jnbp date: 2007-11-16 rating:
Almost brilliant.
King Crimson's Bruford/Wetton period was amazing, releasing weirder and more wonderful music than many people could understand and fewer could rival. The other two albums by this fantastic line up 'Red,' and 'larks Tongues in Aspic,' are five star efforts, some of the best prog ever written.
Logically, the album in between, 'Starless and Bible Black,' should be amazing... well, it almost is.
As you may know, some of the album is studio material, and some was recorded live in concert and just overdubbed. Some feel this leaves the album uneven, but others feel this was one of the bands best ever decisions.
The album contains two fantastic songs, in the form of 'Lament,' and 'The Night Watch,' which are as good as anything crimson have ever done, perhaps better! Also worth mentioning is the sprawling, loose but incredibly good 'Fracture,' which jams along powerfully and EXPLODES after about seven minutes 40 seconds, into RED style fury, with astounding bass, great violin and some very Bruford drumming. However some of the song feels like it could've been trimmed and refined to produce a more cohesive piece. Thats the problem with the album as a whole, its almost Perfect, and heads and shoulders above many of its peers, but at the same time, some of the mess and free form sections could've been improved and this would be one of the best albums ever made.
Overall, this is an amazing album, with great violin, Perfect singing, and great atmosphere, its just that the band could do slightly better.
However this album is still essential to any Crimson or prog fan, especially for 'Lament,' and even the popular Zeppelin in a blender style 'Great Deciever.'
Well Worth a try !

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review by: date: 2007-05-22 rating:
Wetton Himself
This has some of the greatest King Crimson songs with words, sung by the genius John Wetton. The Great Deceiver is a fast power driven song, with the great voice at the front racing with the beat. Lament is beautiful at the slow beginning and then this goes at lightspeed, good, but it was better when it was slow and moving though. The Night Watch has to be in my top 20 all time favourite songs by anyone living or dead. What a brilliant moving intro, if art was a song? It would be this.

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review by: pausing date: 2005-11-26 rating:
Playful
I just bought this exellent CD with "Red", and I enjoyed them both immensly. I have to say that "Starless..." was the one that really hit the "Crimson Spot" for me. I had not heard any of the albums for about 20 years, and the reunion created great smiles in my ears and on my face.

"Starless..." is very fresh and airy, very inventive, and so playful and melodic that I came to think of the band as a gang of children that suddenly discoveres some magic joy of... well, something.

King Crimson makes music that can make you make soft tears, but most of all they make your muscles pump in rage, rythms, crazyness and pure joy. And they make you beautifully confused at the same time!

If you are not sure about King Crimson, listen to "Starless.." and wonder about how it is possible... You might think: "Too crazy for me", but then again: We're talking about a band that has it's own genre: Heavy Mental... Be good, beautiful beasts .)


review by: phil1_atr date: 2005-11-25 rating:
A fine album....
A fine album, one that falls between Larks Tongues in Aspic and Red in Crimsons history, and is perhaps a little over-shadowed by them both. It's the only studio album to feature the foursome of Fripp, David Cross (violin), Bill Bruford (drums) and John Wetton (bass, vocals); Jamie Muir had left, and Cross would depart before Red was recorded, although he did appear on one track.

My fellow reviewer (below) has given a fair summary of the music, which I won't repeat. For me, the album doesn't gel quite as well either "Larks Tongues" or "Red", and I think the reason for this is the use of live material plus overdubs. One tip - if you buy the double live CD "The Night Watch" you will discover much of the concert in Amsterdam from which several tracks on this album, including "Fracture" and the excellent improvisation "Trio" were performed. I think they work much better on the real "live" album , plus the Night Watch CD is a lot easier to track down - and cheaper! than The Great Deceiver...though if you are a Crimson fan you will want them all!!!

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