EMERSON LAKE & PALMER

The albums starts off with the Barbarian, a heavy prog instrumental and rousing opener featuring heavy bass/guitar and some dissonant sounding hammond from Emerson. From the sounds the band makes you actually see in your head a barbarian running around doing barbarian type things. It rocks for about a minute and a half, then goes into some cool piano for a while, until it roars back into the original theme and ends on a frantic sounding note. All in all, an awesome song

Take a Pebble is great when there is singing, and some of the instrumental breaks are good, like the first piano one and the acoustic guitar one, but after a while it can get a little boring. This song is pretty good.

Knife Edge is another rocking song to feature the hammond, and it features one great melody, although it is more of a typical rock type melody, although ELP makes it work for them. Also, the rocking ending with Lake singing over the hammond is spinetingling-ly good. This song is great.

Three Fates is one of those long mostly keyboard only instrumentals. While being slightly boring, it has some cool ideas in it. The church organ beginning is cool, and the first piano part is also neat. The second piano part is alright too, but this song can get a little boring because it drags on a while too long. Although it does show Mr. Emerson's awesome skills, being an alright song.

Tank is another instrumental, which features some alright music at the beginning, although it isn't too memorable, then a rather boring drum solo (even though it does showcase Mr. Palmer's talents to a great extent), but the music after the drum solo is awesome. Some great synth lines and riffing.

Lucky Man is a great emotional closing track. Very melodic, mostly acoustic, with absolutely splendid vocals from Mr. Lake, a nifty electric guitar solo, and one great great Moog solo to finish it. I love the fat sound these things produce. An awesome song.

So all in all, while it is not a perfect masterpiece, I'd say this is essential. The Barbarian, Lucky Man, and Knife Edge are all awesome songs, Take a pebble is pretty good, and Tank and Three Fates have some prog-defining moments in them, so 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5.

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