PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION

ELP has often been attacked by the music press, in many magazines reviewers used venomous language in order to nail them down as too ambitious, too self-indulgent or too technical. To me this does harm to their great progressive ideas. Indeed ELP sounded bombastic and technical but what's wrong with that if you make sensational pioneering music, sometimes a bit over the top but often very exciting. On the live-album "Pictures At An Exhibition" ('72) ELP stunned the world with a powerful and dynamic sound, loaded with sensational runs on the Hammond organs and modular Moog and great play on the piano in the 'encore' "Nutrocker". Greg Lake his voice gives the music a more warm sound and Carl Palmer is a living powerhouse! ELP will always be regarded as the synonym for the lack of emotion and the technical overkill that prog rock stands for but in my opinion ELP delivers with "Pictures At An Exhibition" a wonderful and captivating album that proved prog rock still had many interesting boundaries to explore in the Seventies.