King Crimson released “Starless and Bible Black” on Atlantic Records in 1974 and features the line up of David Cross on viola, violin, and keyboards, Robert Fripp on guitar and mellotron, John Wetton singing and playing bass and Bill Bruford on percussion.
The band moves in a lot of different directions with this release. The album starts off with “The Great Deceiver,” which is a satirical description of decadence and hypocrisy. The music sounds very spastic and fast. It pummels on until it strips itself down to a small bass line and a clickity clacking of drums. They bring it back up and break it down a few different times throughout the song. There is a screeching of the viola by Cross towards the end. Cross’ viola, Fripp’s guitar and Wetton’s bass weave through each other perfectly.
This isn’t the only witty little song on this album. The next song “Lament” is as well. This song moves into a few different directions. It starts off very sweet with the violin then Wetton’s vocals and bass line come in as well as what sounds like the banging of teacups. From the foundation of this bass and what are described as “cups” comes a harder sound. The drums really pick-up from here and speed up the song.
Cross has another touching show of violin on “Trio” later in the album. One thing that is really great about this album is how they will portray very soft moments of violin one moment and then suddenly a slicing propeller of razors is thrown your direction to chop up the song, replacing it with a faster, heavier sound. Very bi-polar of them.
“We’ll Let You Know” starts from scratch with violin, small guitar pickings and slight cymbal taps. It then progressively builds until you receive the assembled product about half-way through. This song noticeably builds itself up, but an aspect that is admirable about this album is a lot of the songs will start from a small framework and progressively the group will fill out the rest of the song, but in a subtler manner. The Night Watch is a mellower song that they don’t get to fancy on; it is pretty steady in play with no sudden movement of sounds.
The last song on the album is Fracture and it is a little darker in appearance than the others. It is all instrumental, as is half of the album. This song spaces out at moments and is then brought back together for the chorus. The mellotron whines on in the chorus over the harsher picking of guitar and drum beating. One thing that was kind of random is that if you listen very closely towards the end of Fracture, when its really picking up, someone yells “Whoo,” which I don’t think was done on purpose but found its way on the album. This core line-up stayed together for three albums. “Starless and Bible Black” is between the other two. King Crimson is like a big fraternity of musicians that pass by and stay for a few albums, then move on and come back. The other two albums are tasty little treats for your ears as well and they are “Larks Tongues’ in Aspic and Red.”