TRILOGY

TRILOGY is kind of the forgotten ELP album from their classic years and I am not really sure why. It has all the great ELP moments; the mad Moog solo's; the beautiful piano piece; the great vocals, the great syncopated rhythms... and the brilliant engineering of Eddie Offord. Yet not many people mention this album as a prog triumph. But it is. Although I like BRAIN SALAD SURGERY better, TRILOGY is really a better, more balanced album.

As a teenager in the mid-70's my friends and I used to talk about BSS more than TRILOGY, but we really listen to TRILOGY more then BSS. The starting of the of The Endless Enigma (Part One) with the beating of a heart and the whistling Moog synthesizer, set the tone for this album. It is both eerie and warm at the same time. The second piece of this trilogy is the FUGUE. Emerson best piano piece, period. Again credit must be Eddie Offord for how this piece is captured. Just beautiful. Then back to the finale of The Endless Enigma (Part One) with the whole band kicking in. Great stuff!

The other standout song is the title track. Greg Lake singing is wonderful. Gone is the echo and reverb which cause Rolling Stone to once call Greg the "Don Pardo of Rock and Roll". I sometimes forget that Greg did have a great voice. Again the song has the wild mad Moog solos with Palmer driving the piece with some odd time signature. Again Great Stuff!

The balance of the album is on par with these two track and is an essential to any progger's collection.