TO THE POWER OF THREE

In one of my very first reviews I gave 1 star to the poor (in my opinion) GTR which was in my opinion nothing more than an attempt to go commercial by the use of the typical 80s sound and a "hair-metal-like" singer. In this album the vocalist is not that bad. Berry does his best to sound like the Europe, but luckily fails.

For the rest, despite the good musicianship of Berry and the two monsters with him, this album has exactly the same flaws of GTR: an uninspired attempt to hit the pop market.

Strangely in some parts it sounds closer to the YES of Big Generator than to the remains of EL&P. Here and there we can still hear Emerson doing something interesting, but it's hidden between the plastic and the hair spray.

Honestly, if you are not disturbed by the standrdized sound of the worst historical period for music (not only) and need some background for your car, this is fine enough, but there's a so big amount of better stuff, even of the same kind, that I don't see a reason for doing so.

In the rare moments when they forget to look for money they place a decent track like the 5/4 of "Desde La Vida". There's a decent ballad, nothing special: Imagine Neal Morse singing "You Do Or You Don't" (not the chorus that's too trivial).

There's a little bit of the true Keith Emerson on the closer, even though it's stuff already heard.

So it's a useless album but not a complete waste if you need to have every Emerson (and Palmer) release.

Rounded up to two stars.