BRAIN SALAD SURGERY

Something like this album shouldn't be ignored. In 1973 Emerson, Lake & Palmer released their fourth studio album (fifth overall) called "Brain salad surgery", an album that has become a classic case of a loved-hated album, probably the most recognizable work of the band with the unmistakable cover by H.R. Giger (the same guy who some years later would design the most terrible ALIEN in film history) with a great repertoire of the most varied songs.

The album starts with "Jerusalem", as the title suggests, this sounds like a religious ceremony at some moments, the elegance of Emerson's organ leads this ceremony in which Lake's vocals sound a little more spiritual than usual, very elegant entrance but not particularly one of the most remarkable songs of the album. "Toccata" is an adaptation of Alberto Ginastera's First Piano Concert, 4th Movement, the very particular style of ELP gave the piece a whole different interpretation from the original version (which I highly recommend to listen to), the energy of the song is highly inconstant, even for them (but that's a good thing).

"Still you turn me on" is absolutely majestic: this is a very sensual song mainly acoustic with a very recognizable riff that catches the attention of the listeners and makes you want to play it again; it's not in the same mood of other mainly acoustic pieces of ELP such as "Lucky Man", "From the beginning" or "The sage", this is something else.

"Benny the Bouncer" is by far the least interesting song of the album, not even the contribution of Peter Sinfield on the lyrics makes it an obligated stop, once again, the Old West Saloon kind of music they played in previous songs as "The sheriff" and "Jeremy Bender" appears on a record. Finally, we have the 29 minutes (divided into 4 parts) suite "Karn Evil 9", a tremendous song that goes and goes between the improvisation and the well-rehearsed moments, it is truly unmissable.

SONG RATING: Jerusalem, 4 Toccata, 5 Still, you turn me on, 5 Benny the Bouncer, 4 Karn Evil 9, Pt. 1, 5 Karn Evil 9, Pt. 2, 5 Karn Evil 9, Pt. 3, 5

AVERAGE: 4.71

PERCENTAGE: 94.29

ALBUM RATING: 5 stars

I ranked this album #68 on my TOP 100 favorite Progressive Rock albums of all time.

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