Beat (1982)

Artist: King Crimson
Release Year: 1982

Rating: 8/10

Track Listing: 1) Neal and Jack and Me; 2) Heartbeat; 3) Sartori in Tangier; 4) Waiting Man; 5) Neurotica; 6) Two Hands; 7) The Howler; 8) Requiem.

Similar to Discipline, but a bit more humorous and personable.  Adrian Belew does the band a lot of favors here, and I have to hand it to Fripp for choosing him as the perfect face of the 80s Crimson.  Whether he's growling and shouting the paranoid narration of urban scenes in "Neal and Jack and Me" or weaving a lover's soft, intimate laments in "Two Hands", Belew is the undisputed central figure of this album.

So, if I like Belew so much, why do I not rate this album as highly as Discipline?  It's hard to put a finger on that, but I think there might be almost too much Belew on here, to the point that the Crimson of old seems to fade away in form as well as in essence.  But, then again...how can that be true?  Look how complex everything still is!  Who ever said prog couldn't be fun?  Who said it couldn't be impulsive and human?

Speaking of humanism, the album's title alone is an indicator of where we are now: an homage to the Beat generation of Kerouac and friends, and a pseudo-diegetic recognition of the band's evolution to suit the times.  I could write for ages about how this album seems to warp the very real aspects of urban life and modern experience through the surreal and almost postmodern lens of blurring faces, animal chimeras, living paintings, and so forth, but that would tell us nothing about how the record sounds, so I'll leave it for another day.

For the most accessible King Crimson song ever cut, look to "Heartbeat".  Hell, you could hear that performed by the likes of Duran Duran or somebody, but then you wouldn't get the laser precision of Belew's springy chords in the chorus and the liquid slides from Fripp afterward.  

In fact, that song leads us to a good characterization of the album as a whole.  The guitar tones are satin-smooth, the bass and Chapman stick liquid and syrupy, the drums precise.  The songs are shorter, catchier, and more to the point.  It's very much a New Wave album, done in the prog manner, and it's a weird sort of balance that is enabled by the frantic humor of songs like "Neurotica".  No one but Belew could deliver the motor-mouthed descriptions of a "hammerhead hand in hand with a mandrill" and not make it feel out of place.  How fitting is it, then, that Adrian would later remember the Beat sessions as the worst of his life?  I can only assume he felt the exhausting demand of being a pretender to the Crimson throne.

Not that Fripp isn't always present regardless, of course-- check out his bewildering, futuristic shredding on the instrumental "Sartori in Tangier", for instance-- but his wizardry is not the driving force behind these songs.  That honor instead goes to Belew, or even to Tony Levin and Bill Bruford, as more rhythm-heavy grooves dominate the record, leaving the guitar work to be drizzled over it for flavor.  In fact, when Fripp unequivocally takes the helm again on the closing "Requiem", blaring over the jazzy drum shuffles and moaning bass lines with horrified, spasming, head-clutching, face-melting solos of madness and despair, it's a jarring contrast against the more open, conversational atmosphere of everything that came before, and almost doesn't seem to fit.  That's a hard thing for some of us to accept from King Crimson, I think, especially after one of David Byrne's followers has already brought a more candid personality to the band.  I say it's a welcome change, though, and an open mind brings great results.