EMERSON LAKE & PALMER

I've said it before, so why not again. In my opinion, Mr. Lake is one of the best singers of the prog scene. Just listen to Take a Pebble and you'll know what I mean. This album is a good debut, a lot better than the follower, greatly recommended. However, as an ELP album, the influences from everyone's old bands are apparent and come out pretty well.

The Barbarian is a good showdown of the guy's skills. For the first time listener who thought of finding about this band, it's a good opener. Though nothing much more than an influental instrumental piece, it's still pretty consistent and ongoing.

Take a Pebble has become one of my favourites. Though in the beginning it's very similar to early King Crimson. Of course because of the singer, but also for the melodies. It's a slow and moody song, a very nice combination of good piano and singing. Of course, on this song and on this album there's a lot more guitar than prehaps later on, as Greg Lake is more of a bass player than a guitarist, and Keith Emerson takes over the melodic/instrumental part of the music. After exploring the guitar, a beautiful grand piano takes over. Really a treat for the ear. Then after some musical passages you realise again what song it is with the nice lyrics and the pompous drumming of David Palmer, for a short while.

Knife Edge was to begin with one of my big favourites. It's a bit more heavy than your usual ELP, but it's got a really nice melody and a thrilling riff. The solo part for the organ is really groovy.

The next a 3 parted keyboard assembly is what I meant with Mr. Emerson taking over the musical part of the band. These are of course great listenings to a pianist, but as a jazz guitarist like me, they're just, well, virtuosity, but perhaps not all that full of greatness as a whole band construction would be. Well, Lachesis is my personal favourite, it's really melodic and nice. The piano trio later on gets a bit too confusing to sound like something you'd want to listen to the whole day through.

As a musician, I'm really thankful for them letting David Palmer play a long and nice drumsolo for Tank. Other than that, it's really not much of a song, but the music of this band seems to be a bit too much just around two persons. Ok, so frankly the solo's not that good, but at least he gets to jam it all off.

Lucky Man doesn't probably need any introduction. This song must be one of the most known ELP tracks. A nice pop-rock song, not really any prog. Well, I guess it was made for getting the album sold.

In the end, this is one of the two ELP albums that I think are the best. A nice debut indeed, and because ELP is such a huge name in the prog scene, for self-civilizing reasons, everyone should probably give this one a go at one point or another. I'm going to give this one 3 stars. 4 would have been my original plan, but in the end, it's a collection of good songs, nothing excellent really, nothing grounbreaking.