Though rudely awoken, really safe and sound

King Crimson - Red - 1974

When I decided to go back to listening to every album I've ever owned in chronological order, one of the things I expected was that I might, perhaps, discover some music that I had never paid enough attention to. And, so far, King Crimson have satisfied that expectation fully, and then some.
I've always respected them, even liked them, and there are a few albums I used to listen to a lot, but those albums come a bit further on. I realise now that I hadn't really ever sat down to really pay attention to their older stuff, and I'm just very glad that I'm doing this, because I was missing on a band I am enjoying an awful lot.
This one is even better than their previous one. It has a much intense, almost heavier, guitar sound, for one. I also love how the almost mathematical precision of the music, with the constantly changing time signatures, combines so well with more "organic" sounds, like the guitar, of course, and brasses. It makes the music much more fun, much crazier and, even if they're always complicated, a lot more accessible.
Even more accessible than many of their counterparts, like Yes, who I'm writing below. Instead of sounding pretentious and showing off, KC manage to sound like a bunch of guys really having a good time, in the way jazz musicians will do when they get it right. The fact that they're insanely talented musicians is just who they are.
This is a brilliant album, probably one of their best so far. They managed to combine precision, madness, beautiful melodies, hard rock and a lot more, and the result is bold, challenging, furious and visceral.
This would be the last album they would ever release until they got back together again in the early 1980s. I can't help but wonder what they could have done if they had stayed together, but maybe the insanity of the album was related to their internal tensions. Whatever the case, this is simply a brilliant album.

• The album seems to have a recurrent theme of fear in the lyrics. Of the three songs with lyrics, the first one, "Fallen Angel", a beautiful song with a melody that, at times, sounds like something The Beatles could have written (mind you, only the melody, of course), is about someone who loses his 16-year old brother to gang life. The line "Strangely, why his life not mine" is heartbreaking.
• There's also "One More Red Nightmare", my favourite track of the album, which is about a guy who has a nightmare about being in a falling plane. He does wake up safe and sound. 
• Musically, while it's universally considered proto-metal (maybe proto progressive metal, it does remind me of Tool, at times), what I love the most is that the main verses are in 4/4, which is rare for them, and makes me want to dance to it.
• The closing track is called "Starless". It was originally intended for their previous album, and it actually features the line "Starless and Bible black". They didn't like it back then, and they worked a bit more and put it in this album. It's 12 minutes of pure glory. 
• And "Starless" it will have to be. I would have put "Red Nightmare", but they're way stingy with what can be shared on YouTube. It's a great track anyway. 

Ours to shape for all time, ours the right

Yes - Relayer - 1974

I could do this one really easy: You just read what I wrote above about KC, and negate it. 

And it would be pretty accurate, because Yes have been my biggest disappointment so far. Indeed, I still enjoy Tales from the Topographic Oceans, but I know I will enjoy it once in a year or maybe a bit less. 

As for the rest, just disappointment. 

I remember this album, mostly for its Side A track "The Gates of Delirium", but now I realise that, basically, all I would do was suffer through the first 15 minutes or so, waiting for the final part, which is a really beautiful piece of music. And suffer because the first part is just over the top and nightmarish. Maybe that's what they meant, because it's about some people going to war. But I can't even listen to it now. 

Side A is the good side. The rest is worse. 

• "Sound Chaser" is just horrible. It starts as if someone had sped it up. It goes nowhere from there, except for Jon Anderson shouting "Cha cha cha cha" like a lunatic more times than one can stand (once would be too much anyway). At Pitchfork, it's described as "a vomit stew of jarring rhythms and bastardised funk". Perfect description.
• "To be Over" is not horrible, but the melody is too silly and simplistic and the instrumentation is annoying and pretentious as usual.
• But this is still beautiful. "Soon", the last 6 minutes of "Gates of Delirium". No matter how annoyed I may be at them, this one I still love.