BRAIN SALAD SURGERY

An excellent piece of progressive rock, this is ELP's peak and one of the greatest Progressive Rock album ever. While it may be pretentious, pompous and overblown to some (those who can't handle intricate playing and 30 minute suites about machines taking over the world), to me and many others it is what makes this album brilliant. Even the cover art is out of this world and controversial, in fact it was even more controversial when the original art had a phallus under the women's lips.

First off we have an adaption of an old English hymn; Jerusalem is a powerful number with great vocal delivery from Greg Lake and wonderful drumming from Parmer. Topped with Keith Emerson's church organ synths makes it a great opening number.

Toccata is a very aggressive and experimental piece. It displays both Emerson's love for adapting classical music and Palmer's new electronic drum kit. It's so aggressive it gives Heavy Metal a run for its money. The timpani solo may be a bit too long but other wise it's one of the best songs on the album.

The next two are short and more radio friendly tunes. First we have another trademark Lake ballad with Still... You turn me on, with nice acoustic guitars and calm keyboards from Emerson, topped with the occasional wah-wah pedal to and it makes for a nice easy listen after the chaotic previous track. Then we have Benny the Bouncer, another comedic rocker which has influences from ragtime and Jazz to give some comic relief before the next track.

At 30 minutes long, Karn Evil 9 is the longest track of the bands career and is divided into 3 impressions. Some say that these are connected and some say these are 3 completely different songs grouped under one suite. The best is the 1st impression with upbeat carnival like music set with dark lyrics about an underground circus show with all the exhibitions showing common Earth objects like virgins, bombs in cars and even a real blade of grass, now viewed as freak attractions. The second impression is entirely instrumental consisting mostly of Piano, Bass and Drums. The third impression is about machines and computer ruling over mankind; with a war in which the machines win, and let one human live for the sake of gloating. This is ELP's magnum opus and one of the best epics, along with Supper's Ready and Close to the Edge.

Some CD's (including mine) have 2 bonus tracks, which were recorded during the album sessions but never made it on to the album. Both can be found on Works Vol.2 The track 'Brain Salad Surgery' is a weird number with march like keyboards and growling lyrics from Lake, which makes this track really enjoyable, I wouldn't mind of having this on the original release because it seems to go with the album (maybe they could of used it instead of Benny the Bouncer). When the Apple Blossoms Bloom... (a very long title with no point typing it all up) is a simple instrumental which seems to experiment with Emerson's keyboards.

A 5 star masterpiece which is one of my favorite albums ever and despite some songs which may not seem Prog, it really doesn't mater when you have Karn Evil 9.