TRILOGY

For me this record had a short shelf life, by that I mean it was a real favorite but that faded quickly. It is far less essential than anything else before Works and maybe it shows the cracks that lurked just below the surface. It is inconsistent and the compositions are not up to the high standard of Brain Salad Surgery or Tarkus and it cannot compete with ELP. It has one essential cut and that is "from the beginning" the rest of the record has not dated very well. Both Bolero and Hoedown leave me flat and just don't sparkle. The endless enigma has some great sections but suffers from a relatively poor lyric and although Greg Sings well it sounds awfully dated now. On the plus side there are no awful songs and it is consistently average with the exception of "from the beginning". Its strange how some records don't date at all and others are a product of their time and place. That is the real problem with trilogy it has not dated at all well. "Living sin" could have been good but the lyric is embarrassing. For the next record Brain Salad Surgery they started to bring in Sinfield to help the clearly struggiling Lake write words. The Sheriff is in keeping with most ELP records the comedy number that allows Emerson a chance to play the kind bar room rag he likes but which is an acquired taste. This record belongs in the classic run of ELP records but is the poorest of that group, it is still leaps and bounds better than anything after "welcome back my Friends" the essential live recording by the band. If you really like ELP you may find that this is a pretty good record like I did when it was new. However I suspect that most people will find it dated and lacking. Thankfully the next release Brain Salad Surgery gets away from the mediocre and now dated playing here and gives one last golden moment in this interesting but flawed Progressive bands catalogue.