TARKUS

If you really think hard, everything you could possibly love about prog rock is all present on the title suite, and everything you could possibly hate about prog rock is here as well. Why such a paradox?

Listen to the ''Eruption'' theme and you'll see what I mean. Given any person, they'll either cry foul and say that ELP have lost their minds wallowing in pretentious excesses or become absolutely blown away by everything presented. Every last trait that any progger could love is presented on this piece; the length (barely over 20 minutes), an odd metre here and there, massive amounts of keyboards, an epic story, blistering drumming, intricate bass, powerful vocals, etc.

I really enjoy ''Tarkus'' simply because of how well I thought it was pieced together; the instrumental-vocal-instrumental type of setup may be typical, but it's enjoyable. My favourite bits are the instrumental sections as the vocal sections contain solos that drag out too long. And unlike most epics, I can't wait to get to the end of the piece (''Aquatarkus''), and when it's all over, I wish that it couldn't end. Even with all of the over-pretensions, even if I have wrote off other epic pieces, ''Tarkus'' just seems to grip me in nearly every possible way without explanation.

The rest of the album is just throwaway. Reminds me of Rush's 2112 album but with a stronger epic piece and overall weaker B side tracks. I admit to liking ''Jeremy Bender'', but everything else has either boring stuff, redundant ideas, awful vocals or outtake-like humour. It drags the whole album down.

Remember kids, overplaying anything is bad for your musical health. That's why it only gets three stars despite the awesome epic piece. Say 3.5 if you want to push buttons.