BRAIN SALAD SURGERY

Emerson Lake & Palmer

Symphonic Prog

4.17 | 2159 ratings

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Beautiful Scarlet

This album has not aged well at all.

Jerusalem is my favourite track, it's short but sounds nice at least.

Toccata is where things start to fall apart. Horribly cheesy keyboard, worse than the "80s synths" that get shit on and the song just drags for the last minutes to show off the sound, which is annoying.

Still you turn me on is a solid ballad.

Benny the bouncer, what?

Karn First impression Part 1 is alright, Greg Lakes "I'll be thEre we'll be thEre" is not so nice as are most of the vocals which have a demo quality feel. Would be better with fx to the vocals, as is they sound half assed and don't flow with the music.

Karn First Impression Part 2, continues where the first part left off with the same offputting vocals, this time with an old timey feel. Also this song doesn't flow into the next and obviously doesn't to the first part which is one side one.

Karn Second Impression opens with energetic instrumental work that leads into an interesting slightly chaotic piano led section, quite nice.

Karn Third Impression starts out well enough, Greg Lakes vocals are a lot better than in the first part. Unfortunately, robot voices appear a little bit here that are unbelievably cheesy. They don't ruin the song but they definitely hurt.

At the end of the day this album has not aged well, inundated with sounds that would fit right at home in B Movie monster films and some of Greg Lakes worse vocals alongside a suite that does not work as one continuous piece of music, rather each section standing alone. For these flaws, Brain Salad Surgery is by no means a masterpiece, rather an acceptable product of its time outclassed by contemporary releases like Relayer/Red and outclassed by releases from modern outfits like Wobbler.

Beautiful Scarlet | 3/5 | 2021-4-18

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