TRILOGY

I really thought this album would have a very high average and that it would be among the first places in ProgArchives' TOP 100 but it wasn't like that; I got really surprised of reading such a large amount of bad reviews and I'll have to disagree with most of those reviews because I sincerely consider this is a genuine gem of Progressive Rock. Unlike the self-titled album "Emerson, Lake & Palmer", "Trilogy" shows much more rehearsed than improvised Rock, and, unlike "Tarkus", this album doesn't have such a notoriously difference in the quality of each side of the LP.

"The endless enigma (Part one)" is the opening track of the album: it is a six-minute piece mostly led by Keith Emerson's piano, the mood goes from intense rock to a very soft ballad section, Carl Palmer's punchy drums gave a very strong presence to this song. "Fugue" is one of those ELP tracks in which we can appreciate the skills of Keith Emerson, this piano solo composition functions as a transition from the first part to the second one of "Endless enigma" so, the next song is the conclusion of the first song which is considerably shorter than the first one and with a very different melody; after these three songs we find the (probably) most known song of the record.

"From the beginning" is just beautiful: if we still had any doubt that Greg Lake was not only an excellent bass player and an even better singer but he also had amazing skills on acoustic guitar (what we can appreciate on earlier songs of ELP such as "The sage" and "Lucky man") this is totally the best example of what a talented guitarist he was; the calmest and most relaxed piece of the album has become one of the most recognizable songs of the group, and a total favorite of the fans.

"The sheriff" brought back the Old West Saloon style that ELP had already presented in "Tarkus" with the song "Jeremy Bender" but in here we have a much more interesting song: the drums have a powerful presence in the entire piece and, once again, Keith Emerson's keyboards give the song a very original sound. Probably the very ending of the song was too much Old West but further than that is nothing of a bad song.

"Hoedown" is my personal favorite song on the album: this total instrumental piece is a great example of what I wrote in the first paragraph of this review: the songs these guys were playing on "Trilogy" sound much more rehearsed than the songs on their first record; this is one of the most aggressive and concise songs of the album, everything in here (bass, drums, and keyboards) are probably the hardest they ever went.

"Trilogy" is absolutely fantastic. Yes, once again, Keith Emerson's piano is the main protagonist of the song: in the first part of it, he played an excellent calmed piano solo only to change to a very aggressive middle section with the most explosive organ solo someone could expect. In the last part of the song, Palmer's percussions are unstoppable and they went really well with the madness of Emerson.

"Living sin" is a filler song, very short and honestly not too interesting but it's not a song that I would skip either. "Abaddon's Bolero" closes the album and just as its name implies, Emerson composed a very interesting bolero that comes and goes through eight minutes without getting boring, the melody is beautiful and Emerson could have played it for other eight minutes and it would still be an excellent piece.

I wouldn't consider this an overrated album, on the contrary: this is a very indispensable material.

SONG RATING: The endless enigma (Part one), 5 Fugue, 4 The endless enigma (Part two), 4 From the beginning, 5 The sheriff, 5 Hoedown, 5 Trilogy, 5 Living sin, 4 Abaddon's Bolero, 5

AVERAGE: 4.67

PERCENTAGE: 93.33

ALBUM RATING: 5 stars

I ranked this album #83 on my TOP 100 favorite Progressive Rock albums of all time.

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