TARKUS

With Tarkus, ELP continued to define prog rock at the time. Made up of the sidelong suite and five shorter tracks, Tarkus has very different sides. The title track is one of the first prog epics, along with King Crimson's Lizard and Pink Floyd's Echoes. It is much more developed in theme and story than the two contemporaries I have just mentioned, even it it is a bit hard to interpret. In addition to the developed theme, Tarkus is very complex musically. It revolves around a 10/8 or 5/4 time signature and shows Keith and Carl heroic on the instruments. Lake does his part as well. His guitar solo is very nice and shows that he is quite underrated as his voice sometimes overshadows his musical ability. Tarkus is one of prog's most important and greatest epics.

The second side is another story. It is not as bad as people make it out to be, but an underachhievement for ELP's ablities. Jeremy Bender is not one of my favorites. Are You Ready Eddy? is funny in theory and as an inside joke for their producer, but is not very good musically. Bitches Crystal and A Time and a Place are good songs. The Only Way and Infinite Space hold side two up a lot. They rearrange another Bach song and it works well. Some people don't like their rearrangements, but they great to me.

Overall, Tarkus is essential but littered with subpar material on side two.