PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION

This here is the quinessential classical rock album, being an adaptation of Mussorgsky's piece of the same name, which i am very eager to hear after hearing ELP's interpretation. Almost absolutely perfect, and even with its flaws I think its an essential masterpiece and ELP's best album. Its only flaw is that only four songs feature the angelic vocals of Greg Lake. It also features no goofy songs (Benny the Bouncer/Are you Ready Eddie, etc...)! Awesome.

It starts off with Promenade, a beautiful, cheery organ bit. This segues into a rocking instrumental called 'The Gnome' which features great drumming and organ, along with some cool bass. The comes Promenade again, with some Lake-penned lyrics sung to the same tune as before with some great lyrics. After this comes a darker, largely acoustic song called The Sage, which features a great melody and superb vocals from Mr. Lake. Then comes the Old Castle, which is one of the low points of this masterpiece, seeing as how more than half of it is pointless synth-type sound effects. This segues into a great instrumental 'Blues Variation,' which features some driving Uriah Heep/Deep Purple-esque organ from Emerson. Truly awesome.

Side Two opens up with the familiar and still beautiful Promenade theme. Then the album goes into a dark, organ driven set of songs starting with 'the Hut of Baba Yaga' which segues into the ELP original 'The Curse of Baba Yaga' featuring some breakneck and dynamite vocals and organ and drum work. After they play another variation of Hut of Baba Yaga, they segue into what may be my fav ELP song 'The Great Gates of Kiev' whcih features one of Lake's best vocal performance and one of the best melodies ever. After this beautiful piece ends, ELP goes into a rendition of a rendition of Tchaicovsky's (sp?) Nutcracker, which I was never really a fan of, so I'm not too keen on this one. Its not bad though.

So all in all a dynamite album with only one or two weak points (The Old Castle and Nutrocker). However, this should probably not be your introduction to ELP (BSS for that). Highlights are: Promenade 2, The Sage, Blue Variation, Hut of Baba Yaga 2, and the Great Gates of Kiev.