IN THE HOT SEAT

There's a saying in Rock, to quote Neil Young - "It's better to burn out, cos rust never sleeps." The rust from this album will fester for years as the last in ELP's catalogue - and what a way to go out - not with a bang but with a whimper.

To explain, but not justify this scathing review, I love the band and hail their achievements from their debut to Trilogy, and the reunion which brought us a great album with Black Moon. But what have we here? To be honest, I can't for the life of me remember a single song from 'In the Hot Seat'. I think the first track showed some promise, as I recall, with some good melodies and a nice keyboard fill, but, as I have played this album a grand total of two times, the rest is an absolute blur. I remember groaning during 'Daddy' and hoping it wouldn't all be like this. It wasn't - it was worse. It actually gets worse as the album moves on. Prog? What freakin' prog - there is not a sceric of it in this jumbled mess.

The bonus track, a 15-minute abbreviation of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition", revisited in the studio 22 years later, was a revelation. Not hearing it live for the first time was very strange but somehow therapeutic after hearing the rest of the sugar coated pop squeezed out of the speakers.

This album could be as bad as Love Beach in some respects as there is nothing redeeming apart frrm a bonus track. Without this bonus, I may well have turned the CD upside down and used it as a coffee coaster. Love Beach at least had the Emerson-penned instrumental to lift it from the mire. Black Moon was a great return to at least some semblance of what we love about the power trio but, after Works Live was put out there for the masses in 1993, this follow up studio release is quite a pathetic attempt. It fails miserably in every department, even the album cover is weak, and the booklet is hopeless. I hate the sell out of this band that brought us epic brilliance in the form of Tarkus and Karn Evil 9. What are they doing to themselves? Do they really sincerely believe fans are going to buy into this drivel? Somebody sure does, as they keep churning out this garbage.

ELP usually emit incredible power when they get together but this release does'nt have enough power to knock the fluff off a peanut!

Steer well clear of 'In the Hot Seat'.

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