Mentioned in the AMG, and hey, I've always liked King Crimson, and had good luck with Steve Hacket (of Genesis)'s solo album, so lets see.
This was supposed to be this more mainstream album, but I sure don't hear it. I mean, I guess its more mainstream than King Crimson, but this is no late-era-Genesis. This isn't even Peter Gabriel accessible. Which I mean in a good way. This album is kind of awesome.
There's the the lurching instrumentals, surging through odd time signatures and keys, some punk-ish numbers, and some wild Giddy Motorsey combinations of the two. Even the slower instrumentals ballads work pretty well, dripping with atmospheric Enoistic, Frippertronic production details. The tragically brief Water Music I in particular sounds like Ratatat meets The Books, which, is good. The bizarre vocal snippets, array of guess vocalists, drastic changes in pace and tone, and general adventurousness keep this from being anything resembling mainstream to my ear. What it is is downright listenable, much more so than King Crimson, whose albums I have to confess are comparatively hard to get through.
The low point is I May Not Have Had Enough of Me But I've Had Enough of You, which is as ridiculous as its title, sounding like a limp version of Faith No More's Epic sung over a limp version of Rock You Like a Hurricane. Not awesome. But the rest? Totally worth hearing if you like the adventurousness of prog, but wish it was (a lot) more briskly paced and a little less indulgent. Maybe I'm on a generous swing, take this, and all my ratings with a grain of salt, but my gut says 4.5/5
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