TARKUS

This is the followup to the great eponymous debut. It has many great, spine-tingling, prog-defining moments, and Tarkus (the song) is essential prog and essential ELP. Even the second half has some great ideas.

Anyway, Tarkus starts off (in Eruption) with a wicked keyboard solo that reminds me of the way Close to the Edge starts off with that chaotic, hectic guitar solo. The thing is, this came out a year before Close to the Edge, and not many 20 minute rock songs had been written by that time. (Although I'm not knocking Close to the Edge by any means- I love it to death). The vocal melodies are all great too, the first and third vocal sections (Stones of Years and Battlefield) taking a more mellow and ominous approach, while the second one, Mass, features sort of a typical classic rock melody lifted to great heights by Greg Lake's angelic voice and Emerson's great keyboard work, not too mention the constant backbeat Carl Palmer has going. This song doesn't get boring for one second, and features some of the best keyboard lines ever, especially third part, Aquatarkus. The other two sections I did not talk about, Iconoclast and Manticore (also the name of their record label) are mostly keyboard dominated rocking bits.

Side Two starts off with one of ELP's less terrible, somewhat goofy songs, 'Jeremy Bender.' While some of the lyrics are a tad goofy, its all in all a nice relaxing, Beatle- esque piano song. Bitches Crystal has some good melodies and cool keyboard playing, but it is not a very unique track in terms of prog rock. The Only Way features an alright melody made better by awesome organ, with some rocked up Bach parts in it. This song segues into a keyboard dominated instrumental (Infinite Space) which is good because its not super long. A Time and a Place is one of ELP's best songs I think, with a great melody made epic sounding by the organ riff played in between Lake's vocal lines, and the bridge is hard rocking and fantastic. An awesome song. Are you ready Eddie is not to my taste, being one of those goofy sounding 50's rock songs, which, unlike Benny the Bouncer or Jeremy Bender, does not have a single shred of a being a relatively good song, so it is completely worth the skip button.

So I'd say this album is an excellemt addition to your collection, while Tarkus and a Time and a Place are essential prog rock track and essential ELP tracks if you are looking to get into them. The other songs are pretty good, non-essential though, except for Are you ready Eddie, which is horrible altogether.

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