IN THE HOT SEAT

As any normal proghead, every time I travel out of my country I have to return to Lima with at least a couple of Prog' albums which are very hard to find at our local stores. In 1997 I had to go 4 days to Santiago de Chile for business, but as usual I finished my work in the first 24 hours, so I had 3 days for me and paid by the Company (I had a meeting the fourth day, so I had to stay).

In those years I didn't use Internet very much and there were very few Prog web sites, so I wasn't as informed about the new releases as today. After several hours of search during my last afternoon in the beautiful Chilean city, I found a small store with some Prog' music owned by a gentle Peruvian proghead, so I decided to buy every Prog' album I didn't had and even some I didn't knew but were released by good bands.

I got a couple of excellent albums (not very rare though) and In the Hot Seat, from which I had no information at all, contrary to what you may believe, I don't regret buying it, even when the new material is not worth to be reviewed.

First I have to say that as Love Beach, In the Hot Seat was recorded in a wrong moment, when Carl had required surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome, Keith had problems with his right arm and for the wrong reason, because they had a contractual obligation with Polygram and we know for previous experience how ELP responds in this forced situations (Love Beach).

The only previously unreleased song that's worth a comment is the opener Hand of Truth (The only one I heard in the store) because they still show some of the sound that made ELP one of the major Prog' bands, but the rest new material is awful.

You may ask why I don't regret or if I'm some kind of masochist who finds some pervert pleasure in buying bad music, but the answer is very simple, In the Hot Seat has a good short studio version of Pictures at an Exhibition.

Those 15:29 seconds of pure Progressive and pompous Rock are worth the whole album, for the first time some of us had an idea of how this great work sounds in a controlled environment and with an excellent production, the result couldn't be better despite the fact that's a reduced version.

Now how to rate the album? It's not a masterpieces , not even good (as a whole), but the studio version of Pictures at an Exhibition is a must have, If you want great new material, run away, but if you're a Proghead searching for different versions of classics, it's worth buying it for those 15:29 minutes.

Only for this reason I will rate In The Hot Seat with 3 stars.