IN THE HOT SEAT

A very sad swan song for one of prog rock's greatest bands. Whereas ELP's best albums brought cool and intelligence to prog, this is just AOR drivel like Foreigner, Styx and Loverboy. Indeed ELP was forced by its record label Victory (teetering on bankruptcy) to create the most commercial album possible to save the label. Victory forbade any Emerson keyboard excursions, Lake solo acoustic pieces, or any long songs. The lead track Hand of Truth is fun prog pop, but the rest of the album is just terrible, simplistic AOR. The album stiffed, Victory went bankrupt, and ELP broke up. This album was an embarrassment that neither ELP nor its fans should have to suffer through.