TRILOGY

I've read some reviews of this album (ELP's Trilogy) which cavil about the "excesses" of the title track. I think it's one of the most haunting songs in all of prog (or any genre) of rock. After the meditative, piano-and-vocal first section and the somewhat harder middle section, which together give us, through Lake's spare lyrics, an overview of a relationship gone south, the band tears into an instrumental propelled by Palmer's incredible percussion, and featuring a multi-synth improv by Emerson that builds slowly but relentlessly into the electronic equivalent of John Lennon's primal-scream-like howls on another equally haunting song ("Mother"), reflecting the tension and the distress of a mind nearing extremis in the wake of lost love. Toward the end two synthesizer lines are battling like angry demons in the mind of a forsaken lover. It finally breaks and comes down to earth, with Lake's resigned lyrical coda: "You'll love again, I don't know when, but if you do I know that you'll be happy in the end..."

For me the weakest track is the Bolero. I don't even think Ravel took the original very seriously (he was often quoted as saying that "there is no music" in the Bolero). The Sheriff is an amusing send-up of the way-out-west lawman-vs.-outlaw saga. I love Emerson's down-and-dirty B3 playing on Living Sin, and again I am sorry that so many reviewers seem to have no use for this fun little song. The Endless Enigma is simply archetypal, multi- movement prog rock, and I don't mean that as a put down. From the Beginning is a pretty but inconsequential song that has palled for me because of its endless playing on oldies stations. It does sound like McCartney when the latter is competent but uninspired. But Lake sings well and proves that he can wield an acoustic with the best of them.