BRAIN SALAD SURGERY

We all know about this album and the very long epic "Karn Evil 9." Everyone has heard the 1st Impression (Part 2) on the radio at some point and most agree that this song is very well done, so let's talk about it's supporting tracks. The album starts off with ELP's rendition of the hymn "Jerusalem." The song isn't bad and is a decent opener to the album. If this was anywhere else on the album I think it would sound out of place. The next track "Toccata" is the bands interpretation of the fourth movement of modern Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera's "1st Piano Concerto." If we look at what Ginastera said about their rendetion after hearing it, we can tell that he was satisfied. "Diabolic! That's incredible! You've captured the essence of my music, and nobody's ever done that before"- Ginastera. Emerson was stunned with this answer and later reflected "I didn't know what to say; I could've fallen through the floor. At that moment nothing else mattered to me. The other criticisms of the band meant absolutely nothing." With all this hype that I am bringing about while explaining the track I feel that the song leads up to it. The emotions and different parts explode and "Toccata" ends up being a very powerful track in my opinion. Many fans dismiss this as the band members just showing off, but after hearing the original by Ginastera, you can hear how ELP captured exactly what the composer was going for. In short, "Toccata" really blows me away.

Next we have "Still... You Turn Me On." Now don't get me wrong, this is a good song if it were on a classic rock album, but it just doesn't fit well on a progressive one. The lyrics are terrible (though I won't go into detail because the "ladder" part has been brought up by virtually everyone that hears it.) I find it to be an enjoyable song listening to it on it's own but when it comes directly after the excellent rendition of Ginastera's piece, it falls short. Very short.

We've all heard plenty about "Benny the Bouncer." I find this track to be interesting, but it is absolutely out of place (which almost always tends to be the case with ELP's "comedic" tracks.) If Lake would have sung this song normally, I think it would have been a good song for the album. When he is singing in that raspy voice it sounds as if the entire song is a joke and ruins the feel that is about to appear in the epic "Karn Evil 9."

"Karn Evil 9" is an excellent epic. I'm not going to go into great detail about the song because it is widely known by most progressive fans. I only find it to fall slightly short in the 3rd Impression as I feel that the middle instrumental section is unnecessary. We just heard a very good instrumental in the 2nd impression, I don't feel it to be necessary to hear another 5 minutes of playing while the wrapping up of the concept of the epic should have been brought about sooner instead of waiting so long. I also find those minutes of instrumental to be uninteresting. Other than that this song is very good and should be heard by all progressive fans to develop an opinion on ELP (since it's usually a love or hate relationship.)

Overall I would like to give this album a 3. The only reason I'm giving it a 4 is because I think that "Karn Evil 9" and "Toccata" by themselves would make an excellent addition to any prog collection. This album does fall short of expectations though, due to the hype that it receives by many ELP fans. The thing that frustrates me is how ELP had the absolute potential to make this one of the greatest albums out there. Instead they decided to take the easy way out and write two mediocre songs and cover a hymn that is again... mediocre.

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