LOVE BEACH

I don't understand why should Greg Lake try to sing like Freddy Mercury...this was my first thought after having listened to the first song of this album. Musically is not too different from the cheesy Lake's songs that can be found on the two "Works" studio album. It's a way to say that this song is almost rubbish.

The title track is an outplaced pop song. It makes me think to Zeppelin's "In Through The Out Door", a pop song from the late 60s composed in the punk era. On this song Emerson is almost disappeared. Two out of 7 are gone.

"Taste Of My Love", despite the unpromising title has a start a little more interesting. Lake's voice is always good and this is the first track on this album on which it seems to hear Lake. There's something of the old ELP in this song, but if you think to what the band was doing just 5 years before you can't not hate this song as well.

Let's skip "The Gambler". It's not a Scott Joplin's ragtime or even a rock 'n roll. It's that kind of fillers that are present even in good ELP albums. Not so bad to be skipped, but imagine somebody looking for the "ELP new release", spending some bucks and once at home finds this stuff. After three songs you are still waiting to hear something that deserves the price paid.

"For You" is another unpromising title. Lake is a great singer, but do we really need to have lyrics on each song? Emerson's work in the background is not too bad, but the chords are so trivial that making this song sounding interesting is a challenge. I don't know how many time i resisted to it without skipping.

"Canario" seems copied from PFM's "E' Festa"(Celebration). It is not, but let me say that if they had really copied it, the result would have likely been better. Non so bad but not enough, up to now, to buy the album. The second part of the song contains at least a bit of ELP.

So what? there's an epic on side B. "Officer and Gentleman" doesn't sound very good, but they must have filled the 20 minutes of the track with something bearable. Lake sings like on Trilogy, it's not a bad start. Going ahead one starts to be a bit bored: Lake is good, but why do the other two sound so uninspired? However this is not too bad and even if very far from being "excellent" it's not a bad listening at all. Not at the level we were used even the previous year with "Piano Concerto N.1" or "Pirates", this is the problem.

With this epic only it could have been a three stars album, but the songs are too poor and meaningless both in terms of lyrics and music. Not entirely poor, but for collectors only.