THE RETURN OF THE MANTICORE

A perfunctory best-of set, which outside of the first 5 tracks just rehashes previous material. It's too bad Yes and ELP's box sets can't follow the lead of The Who's "Maximum R&B" box set, which has a plethora of unreleased live versions, B-sides and radio snippets to complement the original album stuff.

This is a marginally better set than the two-disc Atlantic best-of set. What boosts it is the surround sound treatment of "Pictures," which is absolutely fabulous. The sonic quality more than makes up for the editing done to the piece. Crank this sucker up on a home theater! Worth the price of admission by itself.