3

When I first look at the reviews of this band and album here, I see I was among the few who like this album, also I saw not many positive reviews here aswell, so what we have here??? To me is a good album all the way, two of the most well known musicians from golden era of prog Carl Palmer and Keith Emerson meets an excellent vocalist, bassist and guitarist named Robert Berry and the result was the band 3. Everybody knows who is Plamer and Emerson, but who is this Berry, to tell the truth I never heared of him untill I heared this album. He came from an unknown band named Hush who released some albums in late'70's , and early '80's and aswell has a solo career in the '90's. Now, the chemistry between these 3 guys is perfect, I mean they feel eachoter very well, they are like a single unit here, and the result contrary to many reviwers from here is good all the way. Also even the album has an AOR aura on every pieces melted with progressive moments not far from Yes (Big generator era) some Asia or GTR similarities or even ELP in places, the album is extremely well crafted for that period, when progressive music was not far from almost dead with some exceptions, we talking about 1988. I like a lot the voice of Berry , very solid voice, ok tipical for AOR, hard rock music, but here he fits like a glove, Robert Berry gives a string vocal performance as well, with a warm and steady voice that is perfectly suited for this kind of music. The album ventures into prog territory at times, such as the three-part "Desde La Vida", and closing track "On My Way Home" sounds a lot like ELP, but for the most part it is a pop-oriented rock/AOR album, and a strong one at that. In my opinion this album named To the power of three released in 1988 at Geffen is a total winner, not a single moment is weak, keeping in mind that is impossible to have another Tarkus in 1988, time are changing, and about this relase I will give a solid 3 stars, 3.5 . I was very sure that this album is low rated here, aswell in other places , but to me is a good one and I was enjoying every single piece ofr this unnoticed album.

I do have a soft spot for the opener Talkin' 'Bout mainly because it must be the most pompously bombastic and overblown AOR song I have ever heard, and therefore thoroughly enjoyable to my ELP-loving ears. Those of you with more delicate sensibilties may find it somewhat painful. The best tracks are the cover of the Byrds Eight Miles High with some nice drumming from Carl Palmer and a groovy Emerson syth solo. Then there's On My Way Home, a quite touching tribute to former Nice manager and Charisma label boss Tony-Stratton Smith, which is written as a march and has a very Nice-style feel to it. Desde La Vida is the bone thrown to us proggers and quite a tasty one it is too. More pomp and bombast and some real demonic aggression are thrown into its seven minute, three- part structure and in my view it's the best prog track that Emerson had produced since Pirates, and better than anything on ELP's subsequent Black Moon.

Overall this record is rooted in the eighties, from the production sound right down to the unfortunate mullets that all three members sport in the band photos. I'm also not a massive fan of Berry's rather generic-sounding vocals and if 3 had had the more characterful voice of John Wetton to front their material they may well have been more successful. Despite my hatred of most things 80s I still play this from time to time which is more than I can say for the output of Genesis from that era, so a generous three stars.

After the Emerson Lake & Powell album on which Cozy Powell replaced Carl Palmer because the latter was busy with Asia, Palmer once again came back into the fold. However, this time Lake could not take part so they called themselves 3 this time. Since Lake - being the lead vocalist and writer of many songs - was a more important ingredient of ELP, his absence is more apparent than that of Palmer on the previous album. Robert Barry, who replaces Lake here, is also not particularly similar to Lake in the way Powell was similar to Palmer (musically, not just by having last names beginning with the letter p). In that way it is appropriate that they chose a radically different band name this time.

Barry sings lead vocals and writes as many as three of the album's eight tracks on his own and co-writes a further two with Emerson and Palmer. In addition, there are two cover songs. All this is a pretty clear indicator that Emerson's inspiration was running very dry. Indeed, to be honest, ELP ran out of steam already in 1974 and did not produce a good album until the promising Emerson Lake & Powell album from 1986. The 3 album is back to the quality level of Love Beach and the two Works albums. Needless to say, this is not a very good album.

The voice of Robert Barry reminds me a little bit of that of Trevor Rabin. And his effect on the music is similar to the effect Rabin had on Yes. This album fits nicely into the family of 80's albums by classic Prog bands like Yes' Big Generator. It does not lack progressive content, but several of the songs are pure AOR.

I can recommend this album only to major fans and collectors of everything ELP.

I guess everybody was doing this in the 1980s. Trading in their prog roots for some good old AOR. If my memory is correct, reviews at the time called this album dismal. Twenty years later, that term still fits. At least Asia and Yes were performing fairly decent AOR at the time. 3's To the Power of Three is just plain bland. And it's not because of any single member. All three of them contribute to this album's blandness and mediocrity.

The opening Talkin' About was, I believe, released as a single and got some radio play. They did a rather modern, but bland cover of The Byrds' Eight Miles High. The rest of the shorter pieces sound similar to the shorter stuff from the 1985 release of Emerson, Lake & Powell's eponymous album and quite similar to material found on ELP's future 1990s releases of Black Moon and In the Hot Seat. The only interesting number is Desde La Vida, which had some semblance of progressiveness to it despite it's use of 1980s instrumentation.

Clearly for collectors and fans of ELP, especially those interested in the twisted sidebars of the group's genealogical tree. Future ELP releases are as dismal as this one. Robert Berry, on the other hand, actually did some nice progressive numbers as a collaborator and on his own in the 1990s. Two stars.

There are 2 decent tracks on here that are borderline comparable to ELPowell material: "Desde La Vida" and "On My Way Home". Everything else is completely sterile keyboard-driven 80's Pop...Nothing more. (I'd much rather suggest you try Cutting Crew's first album if you're loking for quality 80's stuff--but I digress:)

There's a reason why the band name doesn't resemble the "ELP" moniker for this project -- because the music doesn't resemble ELP.

1 star on the Prog-ometer

1 star on the Personal Taste Meter

Reviewers giving this album 2/5 on its' prog content are right in what they say - there isn't much prog here. However, when you place this album in a pile alongside the prog "classics" of 1987-88 ("Big Generator" anyone?), what you have is an album that stood out at the time, even though die-hard ELP fans will go all-out to detest it.

The opening 2 tracks, "Nothin' But" and "Lover to Lover" are nice, easy AOR rockers. No pretentions - just good, honest rock. "Chains" may be rather bubblegum, but the 7min epic "Desde la Vida" (with an impressive instrumental section from Emerson & palmer) compensates easily. Quality drops slightly in the second thanks to a haphazard cover of The Byrds' "Eight Miles High", but that again is compensated by the wonderfully anthemic "On My Way Home".

I bought this LP around the same time as I bought ELP's "Love Beach" - and this one still gets listened to today (it takes more than a few beers in order to listen to "Love Beach" in its' entirety). As AOR, it's a welcome alternative to the ballad-driven dross of Jon Cain-era Journey or any Styx album after they peaked with "Paradise Theater" - and given the tripe crammed into the British pop charts back in 1987/88, I'd much rather accept this album's flaws than tolerate 40 minutes of Bros or Kylie.

Well worthy of 3 stars as it's above-par AOR, exceeds the qualities reminiscent of the popular music at the time, and still beats the living daylights out of "Big Generator" and "Love Beach". It's not an essential part of a prog-fan's collection, but should appease any prog fan who likes their Journey and Asia.

So, yeah, on the level of "old proggers go AOR", this isn't as good as 90125 or DUKE but is quite a bit better than , BIG GENERATOR, GTR or anything by Asia. Probably on a par with ABACAB. How's that for damning with faint praise?