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The probable epitaph for the historic name, at least in the original conception of a flagship group of progressive rock through various decades. A career that crosses the most important phases of rock music and beyond, gathering influences without altering its spirit.
The previous and dignified Thrak, already almost a decade away, showed good ideas and insights vaguely clouded by a performance that was too cold and detached. Regretfully, the album that presents the Crimson King in the new millennium, heralded by a thousand doubts from the transitional EP "Happy With What You Have To Be Happy With", makes a great group seem stranded, an album that is hard, modernist, with little soul.
Robert Fripp and his genius remain dazzled by the heaviness of the distortions, the crazed synthesizers, the industrial-electronic instrumentation, and together with the faithful Adrian Belew, sign this "The Power To Believe" (year 2003), one of their most pompous works, with few interesting moments sunk in self-referentiality.
It is a saturated, strident sound that inflates manneristic compositions to the point of implosion, leaving no trace of itself. There is no lack of ideas, but they seem randomly thrown into an inconsistent sonic cauldron, often presumptuous and convoluted. The only fully successful track that doesn't hold up the rest of the shaky structure is "Eyes Wide Open," a light and catchy ballad embellished by the usual refined and important frippertronic accents.
The harshness, the mechanical sound reigns over the remaining minutes, interspersed with ambient interludes and electronic textures, almost never memorable. The entire work is finally penalized by a cold, cutting production that makes it all the more bland.
The King we always knew is missing, the group that knew how to combine haunting and dark architectures (see "Indiscipline," "A Sailor's Tale") with sweet and intimate airs ("The Nightwatch," "Matte Kudasai"), failing in both areas with this work, which ends up being manneristic, inconclusive, unfocused. With further regret, perhaps it should stand, definitively, as the last work in the name of King Crimson.
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Other reviews
By Elephantalk
Only one band reflects this last idea: King Crimson, who release their latest work: 'The Power To Believe,' the Masterpiece of the 21st century.
The album leaves a great satisfaction at the end of the listening. A true masterpiece... Because, besides being well-crafted, it perfectly ties together many genres, like Metal, ambient, and especially avant-garde.
By 47
"A pleasant and almost never heavy work, the experimentation is almost never self-indulgent or so heavy as to undermine the musicality of the work."
"A beautiful album also because it is inscrutable to the modern music scene, which thrives on grandiose neglect of detail, which is instead the main strength of this latest effort by the greatest prog band of all time."
By JonnyORiley87
One of the best Rock albums of the early 2000s, also proving the famous saying 'old hen makes good broth' to be true!
The beautiful riff and sharp solo battle between Belew and Fripp, with no holds barred.
