BRAIN SALAD SURGERY

Brain Salad Surgery is considered by most fans as ELP's finest hour on studio,and is the album that carried on their legacy for over three decades.Althoug it isn't quite on pair with Trilogy's subtle perfection,this is still an outstanding prog album,which unfortunately gets too pretentious at times.

Jerusalem opens the album as a precious gem,lasting nearly 3 minutes.The piece is a reworking of a traditional christian jingle(very popular in England by then),with lyrics built upon a William Blake poem.What really makes the song stand out,though,is the thrilling melody and a remarkable drumming performance by Carl Palmer,which leads the song to it's brief yet dramatic conclusion.Another very good tune is the Greg Lake ballad Still You Turn Me On,highly melodic(the spotlight of this song is the melodramatic vocal harmonies of Lake)and quite quick as well.Tocatta and Benny The Bouncer,however,are let downs,the former getting lost in priceless virtuosity show off,while the latter is yet another funny tune in the line of Are You Ready,Eddy? from the Trakus album.

All this tracks must leave space,however,to the main atraction,the 30-minute progressive opus Karn Evil 9.Divided and sub-divided within 3 parts or impressions,this epic composition suffers radical changes of mood several times throughout it's lenght.While the first impression parts 1 & 2 are both stunning pieces of excellent symphonic prog,the second impression again gets somehow lost in unecessarily long keyboard soloing.The last impression concludes the piece back to the symphonic mood of the opening minutes,more tightly structured and crowned with dramatic vocals.The robotic sounds in the last moments unfortunately sound awfully dated,as well as the concept of the whole song.All in all,this is an excellent(although imperfect)piece of progressive rock,and contains some of the best passages in ELP's carrer.This song used to leave space for pure improvisation on stage,and indeed threatned to become a monster when performed to live audiences(as happened in the unbelievable spectacle of the '74 California Jam).

The trio of virtuosos are as always outstanding(at least technically)in their instruments,although I personally have the impression that Keith Emerson stretched a bit too much here,with overlenght soloing that contributes for the unhealthy pomposity of the album.

In spite of it's flaws,a 5 star rating isn't quite suitable for this classic(and time hasn't been much kind to it either),but it is and will remain in years to come an excellent addition to a prog collection.