THE THOUGHTS OF EMERLIST DAVJACK

It is often argued that The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack is the beginning of progressive rock, and while you can likely make the claim that any other group or artist can be tagged with that crown (since all music people love to fight about everything) I'm going to just run with the old standard that this is the seed from whence the progressive genre began to grow. Giving this a listen now two things are quite evident. 1- this is not what we have all come to know and love as progressive rock. 2- you can definitely see the hints of what was to come. This is particularly noticeable when you take in the keyboard work of Keith Emerson. Even here, in these shorter and more contained songs, he has a bombast that lingers underneath, occasionally set loose. The arrangement of Dave Brubeck's Rondo is a showcase of Emerson's ability to take over a track, and he would utilize this piece further in live shows with Emerson, Lake & Palmer in the years to come. There's a bunch of Beatles-esque stylings to some of the songs, most evident in Flower King of Flies and The Cry of Eugene. The interplay between Emerson's keys and David O'List's guitar definitely works but the muddiness of the production and the uninspiring vocal performance does little to lift this one into full flight. No, this album isn't "prog" in the grand sense of the word, but it has enough of the stitches in its fabric to at least make it a worthy listen as an exploration of the roots of the genre.