TO THE POWER OF THREE

After the Emerson Lake & Powell album on which Cozy Powell replaced Carl Palmer because the latter was busy with Asia, Palmer once again came back into the fold. However, this time Lake could not take part so they called themselves 3 this time. Since Lake - being the lead vocalist and writer of many songs - was a more important ingredient of ELP, his absence is more apparent than that of Palmer on the previous album. Robert Barry, who replaces Lake here, is also not particularly similar to Lake in the way Powell was similar to Palmer (musically, not just by having last names beginning with the letter p). In that way it is appropriate that they chose a radically different band name this time.

Barry sings lead vocals and writes as many as three of the album's eight tracks on his own and co-writes a further two with Emerson and Palmer. In addition, there are two cover songs. All this is a pretty clear indicator that Emerson's inspiration was running very dry. Indeed, to be honest, ELP ran out of steam already in 1974 and did not produce a good album until the promising Emerson Lake & Powell album from 1986. The 3 album is back to the quality level of Love Beach and the two Works albums. Needless to say, this is not a very good album.

The voice of Robert Barry reminds me a little bit of that of Trevor Rabin. And his effect on the music is similar to the effect Rabin had on Yes. This album fits nicely into the family of 80's albums by classic Prog bands like Yes' Big Generator. It does not lack progressive content, but several of the songs are pure AOR.

I can recommend this album only to major fans and collectors of everything ELP.

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