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| THRAK | 
 enlarge | Artist: King Crimson
Label: Virgin Records Us
Category: Music
List Price: $16.98
Buy Used: $2.40
You Save: $14.58 (86%)
New (8) Used (31) Collectible (2) from $2.40
Avg. Customer Rating:  33 reviews
Sales Rank: 127063
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
UPC: 724384031329
EAN: 0724384031329
ASIN: B000000W7H
Release Date: April 25, 1995
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Couple of TINY FAINT marks on CD. Plays perfectly. Free upgrade to first class shipping in USA - airmail internationally
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| Tracks:
| • | Vrooom | | • | Coda: Marine 475 | | • | Dinosaur | | • | Walking on Air | | • | B'boom | | • | Thrak | | • | Inner Garden, Pt. 1 | | • | People | | • | Radio, Pt. 1 | | • | One Time | | • | Radio, Pt. 2 | | • | Inner Garden, Pt. 2 | | • | Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream | | • | Vrooom Vrooom | | • | Vrooom Vrooom: Coda |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Thrak finds the quartet responsible for Discipline, Three of a Perfect Pair, and Beat in the '80s reassembled, with Trey Gunn on stick (a basslike instrument) and Pat Mastelotto on percussion joining original members Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, and Bill Bruford. Thrak is musically quite similar to the King Crimson albums of the '80s, but it has less of a tribal, rhythmic focus, giving the bulk of the space to the stringed instruments. Bruford and Mastoletto are present and active (check out "B'Boom") but seem to play more of a supporting role. Belew, back from his somewhat successful solo career, resumed his dominant position, providing all the vocals and plenty of his distinctive backward-sounding guitar work. --Adem Tepedelen
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| Customer Reviews: Read 28 more reviews...
 King Crimson remains the same paradox its leader is... June 23, 1999
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
Robert Fripp doesn't look like a rock musician. He looks more like a parish vicar with his round face and rimless glasses. He doesn't talk like one either--we're all used to London Cockney or Liverpool Scouse from British rockers, but Fripp's dry, clipped tones are reminiscent of the late John Houseman. Then he picks up his Gibson Les Paul and the whole prissy facade collapses. What blasts forth from his amp is the muscular, blunt-force style the Les was built for. Jazziz magazine called King Crimson "thinking man's metal" on strength of this album. Crimson is back--all the way back. This is Crimson NOW, not "remember when". They've taken the minimalist approach they had in the '80s and combined it with the noir aspect they had earlier. "Vrooom", for example, owes a lot to the title instrumental from the "Red" album. The title track "Thrak" is a percussive track based on drums, like drummer Bill Bruford did years ago in Yes's "Five Percent For Nothing", only a lot more jarring. I mean, the whole band's going "SLAM-SLAM....SLAM-SLAM" along with his sledgehammer both-hands hits on the toms (I had the album on when my brother showed up and he went "ho-ly s#&t...!"). There's more than just a little John Lennon in "Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream", with its seemingly-mindless title and I Am the Walrus-derived lyrics. Likewise in the way singer Adrian Belew imitates Lennon's vocal style in "I'm a Dinosaur", a boy-was-I-ever-dumb look back at the Baby Boom generation's love-and-peace trip (as well as a veiled laugh at themselves as a middle-aged band trying to "re-emerge"). They haven't gone all the way back to the late '60s Moody Blues on a bum trip thing--nobody plays keyboards--the bridge section in this song is done by Belew using a synth interface on his Fender Strat. There's even (would you believe?) a song with a backbeat; "People". Most other re-emergent bands seem to be like those old fire horses pathetically still responding to the bell. King Crimson comes out more mature each time.
 Tends to spiral down into a molten buzz November 4, 2004
9 out of 13 found this review helpful
What is the sound of two trios playing at the same time? "THRAK." Also, thud, clomp, and flump come to mind. Onomatopoeia aside, this CD does not represent King Crimson's finest moment.
Rather, the sound generated by these double trios tends to spiral down into a molten buzz, at times as harsh as the death throes of a dwarf star. Too often, the vast amount of energy the band generates seems bottled up with no place to go. It's the same "I've heard this before" riffs but times two, a wall of sound that at times makes one wonder if these folks actually played together or if this music was assembled later.
Then, there are moments of lightness, with songs like the two Inner Gardens or Walking on Air sounding perhaps more reminiscent of Jade Warrior's soft side than anything else.
Oddly, one of my favorite tracks here is the drum duo B'boom, because there is some space to breath and room for all the energy to dissipate. And Dinosaur and Vroom pack plenty of wallop and hearken back to the heady Crimson albums in the early `80s. Robert Fripp was and is a visionary, and while I laud his fearless risk-taking, I don't care for this much else on this dense, plodding assembly.
I realize any review that breaks from the KC's faithful Weltanschauung will not garner many favorable responses in this forum, but that's beside the point.
Best since Lark's Tounge in my humble opinion February 22, 2000
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
I like all King Crimson but Thrak seemed to hit me where I live at this time in space. A little chaos is good, as you know art imitates life. These guys are the best for a long time and if you don't like it your ears are on backwards. All in personal taste I guess. Thrakattack
KC Returns, At Long Last! July 24, 2002
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
After Three of a Perfect Pair, KC suffered its longest hiatus, over ten years. The comeback would have to be significant, and it certainly was. Thrak surpasses many of KC's previous works. The benefit of improved recording technology, plus conceptualization on CD scale and not a two-sided album, leave it among the very best of KCs works, not to mention longest. At 56 minutes, this is way more KC than we are used to (around 50% more).KC revs up the motors with the rocking Vrooom, which leads to a Coda and descending musical figures that end in a bass rock blast. Dinosaur quickly became one of my King Crimson favorites, pop in flavor but with a driving beat. Walking on Air is unabashedly gorgeous and atmospheric, a lovely ballad. B'Boom is essentially a drum solo, but very arresting and creative. Thrak is monster rock, rumbling and driven with some spaced out atmospherics. Inner Garden is mysterious and menacing in tone, but lyrical and lilting. The pop-flavored People features great guitar and a driving beat. Radio I and II are short interludes of outer-space reverb and echo that frame One Time, yet another ballad that rivals Walking on Air for beauty and clarity. This set is brought to a close by a revisted Inner Garden. We are treated to a third pop-flavored rocker, Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream. Two more versions of the hard-rock Vroom bring this great disc to a close.
 Crimso For The Nineties January 26, 2000
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Though not their best, and not quite what I expected, interesting nonetheless. Fripp and company throw in a stew of ideas that are culled from every period of Crimso's existence. It begins with some mellotron recalling the earliest days, launches into riff rock improv circa the ' 73-'74 era with John Wetton and David Cross. They give us some more of the poppy things like they did in the eighties, but in all comes from a new concept, the double trio, two guitarists, 2 Chapman Stick bassists, and 2 drummers. Does it all work ? No. Is it occassinally brilliant ? Yes.
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