EMERSON LAKE & PALMER

ELP's debut is an excellent album but in recent years I have developed mixed feelings about it. The opening track 'The Barbarian" is a great opener and a good indicator of where they were heading. It is largely an original composition with the first and third section comprising a great fuzz base intro and dramatic Hammond organ melody and sandwiched between on piano is a re-working of Bartok's famous "Allegro Barbaro". It might be sacrilegious to say this, but I actually enjoy ELP's strident version more than the slightly pensive tone of the original. A great driving Prog Rocker. My problem with the album starts with the next track "Take a Pebble". The main song section is absolutely gorgeous and right away Keith Emerson's decision to find a "proper" singer in Greg Lake absolutely pays off with the singer's superb tenor. The piano section which follows is also quite beautiful but the whole song drifts off into a fairly pedestrian pseudo Bluegrass acoustic guitar improvisation followed by yet another piano solo before finally the song section reprises. For me, however much I admire the instrumental prowess on display here, the song would have been so more effective as a simple four minute plus ballad even incorporating a piano interval but at twelve and a half minutes, it is just so bloated. The first side's closing track "Knife's Edge" incorporates the beginning of Janacek's "Sinfonietta' and compresses it into a five minutes Prog Rocker with vocals instead of the trumpets. It is quite a clever exercise but I always find the song a little dare I say cheesy in its execution. The opening track on side two, "The Three Fates" is clearly Keith's baby. It is strongly reminiscent of the sort of experimental music he was exploring with his previous band The Nice. He combines Church organ, Hammond Organ and of course his beloved piano into a Classical/Rock hybrid which unfortunately comes across as a bit of a meandering mess. The second track "Tank" is more focused with its strident melody similar to what the band would produce with Tarkus and incorporates a fairly sophisticated drum solo. It is a pretty decent track but I always felt it was a bit underdeveloped especially the closing couple of minutes which is dominated by Emerson's rather atonal moog solo. Greg Lake's beautiful "Lucky Man" closes the album and is probably the best known song on it. Unlike the somewhat sprawling "Take A Pebble" this track is very concise and boasts another early example of the moog synthesiser at the end which seems to be at odds with the song's bucolic tone but somehow I cannot imagine the song without it. Overall I would say that while this album is fairly assured, better was to come especially with the very next album-Tarkus. A great way to start.

4 stars