HIGH VOLTAGE

I'm not joking, and don't call me Shirley.

Here we go with another obsolete cash in recording of the best of ELP. At last count there was a minimum of 14 compilations and of that collection there were at least 2 worth getting being "the Ultimate Collection" and "The Manticore Boxset". Of course these feature everything on this latest compilation and more so are ideal for newbies or for those unfortunate pedestrian proggers who cannot be bothered getting the quintessential 6 seventies albums: namely, "Emerson Lake & Palmer" (debut), "Tarkus", "Brain Salad Surgery", "Trilogy", "Pictures at an Exhibition", and "Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends", a triple-live album. These albums will give you just about everything you will ever need apart from one or two from "Works". This year has also seen a box set of live ELP that is wonderful and worth grabbing too called "A Time And A Place."

So what do we have here in this lovely little unashamed cash in on the latest concert tour of High Voltage? Well, it's not all that bad if you are a newbie for a number of reasons. The tracks are not butchered but are given the full treatment without edits and they are remastered so sound quality is A1.

You can take the 20 minute 'Tarkus' test right here as always. No complaints here though I have personally heard this at least 50 times.

You can revel in the full blown concert epic 'Pictures At An Exhibition', all 33:34 minutes of it; this is always stunning music and a good way to obtain the concert if you do not have the original album. But who doesn't own this already? All ELP fans would have this so the album is definitely not designed for existing fans and you would expect fans to be at the concerts to shell out a hundred bucks to see them. So if this Comp was on the merchandise stand at the concert it is unlikely it would sell to fans, who are not completists at least. Certainly the concert had a great sale item of the "High Voltage Live" and THIS is worth grabbing.

'Nutrocker' is here too on the comp which also comes from the "Pictures" concert. So CD 1 is about an hours worth of classic ELP at its best.

Flicking on CD 2 we have the amazingly out of place 'Touch And Go' and I thought the album says ELP not ELP. Hang on a minute let's try that again... I thought the album says Emerson Lake & PALMER not Emerson Lake & POWELL. That's right, the Powell version of this anti- classic is here for no particular reason and it is simply a ridiculous choice. A sheer delight to find the often left off 'The Barbarian' instrumental from the debut, a brilliant piece of music by any standards.

Then the familiar trumpet sounds bring us the quintessential 'Fanfare For The Common Man', perhaps the only reason to get "Works 1" and this version here is the full 9:43 minute unedited version, so I won't trouble the complaints department here.

What's next? Ah, it had to be... the mandatory Lake ballad. Sorry, Mr lake but I am bored witless one minute into it. How many times I have had to endure this tripe, the only great thing about it is the ending with the Emerson synth section. But I would hazard to guess that every dang ELP compilation features this track. Correction, not features, inundates the listener with this track. And don't give me that excuse that it is a single and has to go here, there is a lot better material that could have replaced it such as 'Jerusalem' or a section of 'Karn Evil 9'. In fact that brings me to the question, where the heck IS 'Karn Evil 9'? It's ridiculous that this track is missing. If I had been in charge of this comp set list, 'Karn Evil 9' would have been priority and replaced 'Touch and Go' and 'Lucky Man' as 8 minutes of this classic buries both these tracks. Lastly, but by no means leastly, we have the brilliant 'Take A Pebble' clocking 12:27 and I adore this track so no complaints from me. Absolutely brilliant Lake vocals and Emerson piano drives this along and it is mesmirising from start to finish.

Now this second CD runs for a whopping 36 minutes. You heard me right, 36 minutes on a CD! and they have the audacity to leave out 'Karn Evil 9', 'Trilogy' and 'Pirates' which would have fit on here easily in some form. What gives? What a rip off? Seriously, who are they kidding?

"Love Beach", "Works 2" and "In the Hot Seat" were completely ignored as a strategic move one might suggest, so we are spared having to wade through any of that regurgitated dross. No "Black Moon" material is a surprise though as that wasn't half bad.

So overall this is an amazing compilation of ELP, but why bother? Everyone needs to hear the aforementioned ELP classic albums and there's enough compilations to sink a battle ship so another compilation just does not make sense. A tour CD? Still, no excuse, as a live CD is sufficient. I can understand labels wanting new material but this is just grabbing at the hip pocket of completists and newbies have enough to choose from and much better at that. I am left in a perplexed state looking at this album. It is expensive, well packaged, with nice booklet and a great sound, but purely obsolete. Having said this, it has to get 2 stars at least as the songs are essential, and perhaps some newbies to the band out there may grab this and want more; eventually being led to get hold of some of the best 70s prog albums on the planet.

I (fortunately) wasn't fooled by the name of this compilation and therefore do not own it.

But I know the music which is to be heard, and the music ranges from 2 stars (Touch And Go), 3 stars (Nutrocker, Lucky Man), 4 stars (Fanfare For The Common Man) to 5 stars (Pictures, Tarkus, Take A Pebble, The Barbarian).

Musically, this thing should therefore be somewhere around 5 stars.

But the first big question is: who needs this compilation? Beginners get quite a good impression of some of the best ELP tracks. It is okay, too, that Karn Evil is missing here, which in my opinion isn't the most necessary ELP piece. There also aren't too many compilations which include that many tracks from the early ELP 1970-1971; but: where is Trilogy? Furthermore, there already exists one great compilation with a bigger diversity and some more additional minutes (CD 2 of High Voltage is somewhere between 30 and 40 minutes), Fanfare for the Common Man: The Anthology.

But the thing which annoys me extremely is that the album title could make people who know that ELP played on the High Voltage Festival 2010 buy this record, thinking that this is the matching live CD. If this is a marketing technique (and I do think it is), I call that infuriatingly impudent and rude.

Musical quality: 4.5/5 Compilation quality: 2.5-3/5

Actually this compilation, smelling badly of a rip-off, shouldn't get more than one star. But beginners who want to get to know ELP shouldn't be disappointed as there is some good music to listen to, so I will give 2 stars.

"High Voltage" is a compilation album of Emerson, Lake & Palmer and that was released in 2010. It has only tracks from four studio albums of Emerson, Lake & Palmer and a track from the Emerson, Lake & Powel's album. It has three tracks from their debut studio album, two tracks from "Tarkus", one track from "Works Vol. 1", one track from their debut live album "Pictures At An Exhibition" and one track from "Emerson, Lake & Powell". So, their studio albums "Trilogy", "Brain Salad Surgery", "Works Vol. 2", "Love Beach", "Black Moon" and "In The Hot Seat" aren't represented here.

So, "High Voltage" is a compilation album with only eight tracks. "Tarkus" is from "Tarkus". "Tarkus" is a suite divided into seven parts, "Eruption", "Stones Of Years", "Iconoclast", "Mass", "Manticore", "Battlefield" and "Aquatarkus". This is a very complex and a fantastic piece with great creativity, very experimental and certainly very avant-garde for those years. This great progressive epic represents the lengthiest studio song made by the band until their song "Karn Evil 9" released on "Brain Salad Surgery". This remains a favourite song for the fans and was consistently played live by the group. It's probably also my favourite piece of them. "Battlefield" is absolutely superb, beautiful, memorable and an unforgettable song. "Pictures At An Exhibition" is from "Pictures At An Exhibition". "Pictures At An Exhibition" was a suite written for piano by Modest Mussorgsky in 1874. This band's version of Mussorgsky's beautiful work remains as one of the best examples of a rock version of a classical piece. This wasn't their first treatment of a classical piece. Keith Emerson had made several previous versions of some other classical pieces with The Nice. But it was the first time he reached a mass audience or get heavy radio play, at least some excerpts. It introduced the notion of "classical rock" to millions of listeners, making the classical music seen from another point of view, becoming to be considered less pretentious and more popular into the public. "Nutrocker" is from "Pictures At An Exhibition". It's a jazz variation of a Tchaikovsky's theme. This is a showcase of the band disposition to light things up after an extended, demanding display of the serious music. This re-elaborated version of a "Nutcracker" section is yet another example of the trio's interest in exploring the roots of chamber music and translating it into a rock context. "Touch And Go" is from the Emerson, Lake & Powell's album. It's a simple rock track. This is a Greg Lake's driven song with his voice sounding steady and clear, with a power to it which had been lacking on the immediately previous albums. It has good and majestic keyboards, an intricate bass line and Powell plays simple and effective drums. This is probably the easiest song to emulate and has a sort of up-tempo and energy with a touch of light classical music. This was the "hit" of that album, the song to be passed on the radios. "The Barbarian" is from "Emerson, Lake & Palmer". Despite it has been attributed to the trio, this is a musical arrangement of a Bela Bartok's piano piece, named "Allegro Barbaro". Although, the original piece is only for piano, the band rearranged the song for organ, bass and drums. It's quite a heavy song, entirely instrumental and almost completely dominated by Keith Emerson's Moog and other synthesizers. This is a great aggressive track with a hard rock influence. "Fanfare For The Common Man" is from "Works Vol. 1". It's a great interpretation of a classical piece of Aaron Copland re- arranged for a rock band. Aaron Copland's original is wonderful, and ELP didn't do a bad job on the arrangements. Synths are heavily used, especially in the later sections. It sounds like the early ELP, being experimental and heroic. "Lucky Man" is from "Emerson, Lake & Palmer". It's a ballad written by Greg Lake for acoustic guitar, when he was a schoolboy. However, at the beginning, the song wasn't well received by Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer. It's a song with acoustic guitar, beautiful singing and a great synthesizer solo towards the end. It's one of the best songs written by Lake. It also became as one of the band's most commercial and accessible tracks in their entire career. "Take A Pebble" is also from "Emerson, Lake & Palmer". It's a beautiful ballad by Lake. This is the lengthiest track on that album. This is a magnificent song with powerful vocals by Greg Lake. It's a soft acoustic track with Greg Lake in fine vocal form and playing some wonderful acoustic guitar. His singing is simply terrific, with the final line of the verses building on the legacy of King Crimson's "Epitaph", which sounds even better.

Conclusion: Like is usual with almost all compilation albums of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, "High Voltage" is a good compilation album from the band, despite it doesn't cover the majority of the career of ELP. Still, and like is also usual with almost all their compilation albums, it has a good selection of tracks where some belong to their best and most progressive phase. It has especially four of their best and most acclaimed pieces. I'm talking about their four lengthy pieces, "Tarkus", "Pictures At An Exhibition", "Fanfare For The Common Man" and "Take A Pebble". Besides that, we can also see some other great tracks from the band that belongs to their golden era, "Nutrocker", "The Barbarian" and "Lucky Man". Even "Touch And Go" from "Emerson, Lake & Powell" is really a great addition to this compilation album.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)