Lizard, King Crimson's third studio album and second release of 1970, was, like its predecessor In The Wake Of Poseidon, the product of a studio band. It was also the first Crimson album for which Robert Fripp provided all the music. Remarkably self-contained and somewhat atypical sounding for a King Crimson album, even by the standards of a band that rarely sounded similar from album to album, Lizard is an often overlooked and underrated gem from the band's early years. Anyone expecting at the time of its release an expansion of the soundscapes introduced and explored on the band's two earlier albums was certainly in for a surprise. Lizard was characterized by a lighter, more delicate sound than the earlier albums - an approach perhaps necessitated by an expanded instrumental lineup. The expanded instrumentation allowed for intricately woven instrumental passages - with Fripp's guitar and Tippett's piano pleasingly to the fore - and this combination, along with the prominence of Mel Collins and guest musicians on the album's title suite, led some to believe that Fripp would lead Crimson into the world of jazz and away from rock. But such claims were inaccurate. Crimson was as eager as ever to expand the vocabulary of rock music, and Lizard was in some ways the band's most ambitious album to date. Since this lineup never toured, very little of the material was performed live. Lizard remained a product of the studio environment and the musicians who contributed to it (among other things, Lizard contains a beautiful cameo by Jon Anderson). The stand-alone nature of Lizard makes it difficult to put together in the context of Crimson's other material - only Bolero is included in the box sets that cover Crimson's extensive history. Lizard remains a fascinating, compelling album - one that only a band called King Crimson could make - even if it was a very different King Crimson than what came before or after.