EMERSON LAKE & PALMER

To talk about EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER is to talk about one of the most important and transcendental groups in Rock history. This supergroup got a very loyal cult of followers from around the world, their first albums were part of the most solid foundations on which Progressive Rock was built. They were only three guys playing the most aggressive buy yet sophisticated experimental rock pieces and becoming an undeniable legend of music.

Their first album was called simply "Emerson, Lake & Palmer", which included six songs through which the homonymous band showed what it had to offer. They made a tremendous performance at the festival of the Isle of Wight in 1970, legend has that they were talking to Jimi HENDRIX to consolidate an even more fantastic supergroup that would be called HELP, but since HENDRIX died on September 18, 1970, this project never reached to see the light. It is well known where these three musicians came out from but I'll mention just as a reference: Keith EMERSON (keyboards) came from THE NICE, Greg LAKE (bass, vocals, and acoustic guitar) came from KING CRIMSON and Carl PALMER (drums) came from ATOMIC ROOSTER.

The opening track of the album is an instrumental aggressive piece called "The barbarian", in here we can start to understand what the sound of EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER was like: the absence of guitar doesn't affect the rawness of the song; the organ and bass lead the piece while the powerful drums of PALMER give the extra punch the song needs, as an opening track is explosive and catchy, I feel almost obligated to listen to the entire album knowing they did such a great introduction.

As a second song, we have "Take a Pebble", my personal favorite track in the album and also the longest composition contains; here we recognize the voice of Greg LAKE from his recordings with KING CRIMSON and actually, this song has some moments that made it sound like a part of "In the court of the Crimson King" but, Keith EMERSON gave it a very unique touch notoriously different from what Ian MCDONALD used to play. Also, the middle section contains a very beautiful soft acoustic guitar line that teaches us the habilities of Greg LAKE in this instrument, since he didn't have a lot of opportunities to play it in KING CRIMSON.

"Knife-edge" is a very intense rock song that has become one of the most famous pieces of EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER; an old-time favorite in their live performances with a very unique and powerful organ riff (I don't know if it is correct to call it a riff since it was not played with a guitar) that collides with the precise drums.

"The three fates" is an amazing piano and organ performance composed by Keith EMERSON and divided into three sub-tracks: "Clotho (Royal Festival Hall Organ)", "Lachesis (Piano solo)" and "Atropos (Piano Trio)" in which we can appreciate the amazing talent Keith EMERSON had on his instrument, changing from an almost classical piece to a very complex and aggressive Experimental Rock song reaching the end.

"Tank" is another instrumental song in which now we can hear a very nice drum solo by Carl PALMER, drum solos were very common in those days: almost all the rock bands of the era had at least one song that includes a drum solo (LED ZEPPELIN's "Moby Dick", BLACK SABBATH's "Rat salad" and IRON BUTTERFLY's "In-a-gadda-da-vida" are my favorites), the song ends with a very concise organ line accompanied by a strong bass figure.

"Lucky man" is absolutely beautiful, it's a rock ballad led by the acoustic guitar of LAKE but with the presence of EMERSON's organ and PALMER's drums that give the song a very unique relaxing Hard Rock atmosphere. This song is maybe the most famous that came from this record.

Absolutely essential, the debut of one of the most important bands in Progressive Rock was a great example of how good an album could get with few musicians and not a lot of unorthodox instruments as long as the quality of the compositions and the talent of the musicians is as high as these.

SONG RATING: The barbarian, 5 Take a Pebble, 5 Knife-edge, 5 The three fates, 5 Tank, 4 Lucky man, 5

AVERAGE: 4.83

PERCENTAGE: 96.67

ALBUM RATING: 5 stars

I ranked this album #38 on my TOP 100 favorite Progressive Rock albums of all time.

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