Album Reviews : Masters of Sugary Melodies Fill Album With Melodrama : ** 1/2 King Crimson, “THRAK,” Virgin.

The first album by these progressive-rockers since 1984 is the real stuff. Robert Fripp and company (who play Thursday through next Saturday at the Wiltern) evoke a spiral toward 21st Century schizoid dystopias in passages that blast with sinewy, angular shriek, and balance them with a sometimes wry, sometimes cynical, sometimes plaintively lovely personal dimension, with smart pop tunes that singer Adrian Belew decks out in various shades of Lennon.

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).