TARKUS

The best ELP album, IMO, although I admit I have not yet experienced the much maligned 'Love Beach' Like many other prog bands ELP enjoyed the prog glory days, with a string of strong albums which staked their place in the genre. Tarkus, for me is where the classic Hammond driven sound of ELP, much in evidence of their their excellent debut album, meets the excitement of Brain Salad Surgery. The Tarkus suite itself is how I would selfishly like ELP to sound most of the time, and I guess this is why I'm not really a fan; too many ballards and throw away songs in their repetoire.

However, Tarkus is a triumph. It grabs your attention from the outset and leaves you breathless, wondering how on Earth Keith Emerson managed to play the whole thing from beginning to end, without sustaining some kind of injury!! Tarkus is a work for peace, taking us through musical chapters and a variety of moods and changes of style, and pace. It's one of the best prog epics there is, and sits alongside the likes of 'Close to the Edge' by Yes and 'Suppers Ready' by Genesis as an all time classic.

I award four stars for this suite. After the title track the albums takes an unfortunate nose dive IMO. With the exception of the excellent 'Bitches Crystal' and 'A time and a Place' the rest of the album is comprised of time wasters like 'Jeremy Bender' and 'Are you ready Eddie' and pompous innapropriate excursions into the realm of dubious taste and ill judgement with 'The Only Way' (a Hymn)

Tarkus is worth getting for the title track alone, which wont let you down, which with the other two good tracks is a respectable amount of material overall, to justify the rating for the album. It's a shame ELP were generally so inconsistent, their potential and talent was enormous.