EMERSON LAKE & PALMER

Any normal new band can afford the luxury of making a good even when not great album but ELP not, they were the first Prog Supergroup, with members who came from great bands as The Nice, Arthur Brown and nothing less than King Crimson, so people should expect not only a solid but a mature album and they partially achieve the goal, even when it's evident we're not before one of their masterpieces.

The album is very good, saying the contrary would be a lie and unfair, but it's far from being even close to the status of masterpiece. Some tracks are almost perfect but others too simple for them, most are well elaborate but as a whole it's a bit uneven, so without more subjective comments, lets check the songs.

"The Barbarian" is an adaptation of "Allegro Barbaro" by the Romanian composer Bela Bartok, quite an ambitious task, but IMHO they fail, at the beginning you don't know if they remain in the Psychedelic era or trying to make some Classical oriented Hard Rock, then they step closer to Jazz and Neo Classical. If I had to say something positive, the drumming by Carl Palmer is quite impressive but nothing else, yes Keith is very skilled but it seems like not able to find a defined style, loud and frantic, but lost in the middle of nowhere.

"Take a Pebble is a solid improvement, Keith starts scratching the chords of the piano and immediately joins the wonderful voice of Carl Palmer sounding better than ever, absolutely impressive and strong, the piano background is incredibly beautiful, then the instrumental section gets even better, Keith proves how good he is in the piano and Carl makes a perfect subtle jazzy drumming, simply love this track.

"Knife Edge" is another adaptation, in this case from Sinfonietta by Janacek, the result is amazing this time, Greg's incredible voice helps a lot and they can really Rock while making radical changes, then the instrumental section is Prog at it's best and the organ solo gives me goosebumps, another excellent track that never bores.

"The Three Fates" simply leaves me cold, seems like Keith lost his path between Rachmaninoff and Debussy and could never find it, it's a pity that the only epic and the best chance they have to demonstrate what they are able is practically wasted, not bad but they were able of much more.

"Tank" starts solid with Keith making his synth sound as a clavichord, the rhythm section works perfectly with Lake at it's best, but the two minute solo by Carl Palmer is way too much, it may be great in a concert to give the rest of the band time to take a breath and get an ovation, but in a studio album is a waste of time, yes we know Palmer is top notch, but this is not the way to prove it, playing perfectly with the rest of the band is better.

After the boring solo, the closing section is also brilliant, Lake is again perfect with the bass and Keith knows what to do when he puts his hands on a Moog, now Palmer does a great job, if there was a way to eliminate the drum solo would be a perfect song, sadly that's not possible so we get a good one and not more.

The album ends with the naïve "Lucky Man", yes I know people will say that Greg wrote this song when he was 11 or 12 years old, what is pretty impressive, but he was 23 and Keith three years older when released, so by this moment it was not a so impressive achievement.

But being honest, the singing is perfect and every album requires a single and a chance for the audience in the concerts to sing along, so "Lucky Man" fulfills it's mission and it's pleasant, at the end the Moog performance by Emerson makes the track much better than the usual acoustic versions sung by the author lately.

Now it's time to rate the album, not a masterpiece so 5 stars is out of the table, but now comes the problem, I'm not sure if it's an excellent addition for any Prog Collection and obviously is not essential from my point of view, but it's more than just good.

This is one of the cases in which I wish there was half stars to rate it with 3.5, but being impossible, will have to go with 3 very solid and a bit unfair stars.