IRON MAN - VOL 1 (OST)

Iron Man is one of Keith Emerson's several soundtrack albums, this time for an animated superhero film. The album is subtitled "Vol. 1", but I don't know if any further volumes where planned at the time. Even though I am personally not familiar with the Iron Man comic or with the film for which this music was created, I think that Emerson has captured the superhero feel here in musical form quite well! The music definitely comes across as "heroic". The brief opening number is only just over a minute and it presents the main theme which recurs many times throughout the album.

Completely instrumental and featuring only Emerson's keyboards and some programmed drums, this music reminds me of Geoff Downes excellent mid-80's "New Dance Orchestra" album The Light Program. However, even if there are many strong melodic ideas here, Emerson's Iron Man is sadly not as well structured as The Light Program. The biggest drawback is its excessive length. Clocking in at over 70 minutes I think it could have benefited considerably from being cut down to, say, 45 minutes. In that way the many good musical ideas present here could have been condensed into a stronger cocktail instead of being slightly diluted.

Still, despite being a bit rough around the edges I really do enjoy listening to Iron Man Vol. 1. Despite the absence of proper drums, bass, and vocals, there are several ELP-like moments and fans of that band and of Emerson should not miss out on this obscure keyboard fest!

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