BLACK MOON

I am shocked by the number of good reviews, and horrified by the five star reviews this album has received. They must have been written by people that think the last half dozen Genesis albums are progressive gems.

First, Greg Lake sounds like he spent the previous twelve years sitting in his house chain smoking. Or maybe if he just cleared out whatever was blocking his throat, he could get some of that golden tone he once had. And Carl Palmer must have thought he was still pounding out simple beats for Asia. And the songwriting? Except for a couple of songs, everything here is AOR. Sure, Emerson's keyboards pump a little energy into the music here and there, but there is none of the grandiose boldness that once made ELP one of the top bands in the genre.

The saving graces of the album are Romeo & Juliet from the Prokofiev ballet, and Changing States, both of which can be found in slighly different forms, and under different titles on Emerson's far superior solo album, Changing States.

Really, the best thing about this album was the reunion itself, which gave us a chance to see ELP playing some of their classic material.