KEITH EMERSON BAND FEATURING MARC BONILLA

Keith Emerson is come back to what he does better: a dark fusion of modern classical music, inspired by Russians like Stravinskij and Mussorsky and americans like Gershwin and Copland that makes his music very suitable for movie soundtracks. The first 15 tracks are part of a single suite that sounds very close to the early ELP works. The references can be Tarkus and Trilogy. Marc Bonilla's voice sounds close enough to Lake's in both the relaxed and the rock moments. Greg Bissonette and Bob Birch make an excellent work on the rhythmic parts, often based on unusual tempos, while Bonilla's guitar is an excellent addition respect to the ELP times, as Lake was more used to play Bass and/or acoustic guitar, but guitar solos were very rare. After he starts disappointing his fans with Works vol.2 about 30 years ago, this is probably his first album back to excellence. My favourite track here is "Marche Train", however as I wrote before, it's part of a suite so there's no sense in mentioning a single part.

The last four track are not part of the suite, and looks like fillers for an album that otherwise would have been too short. A special mention to "Game time"; a boogie that reminds to the Honky Tonky Train blues time but is in line with Emerson's previous works. It sounds here as "Are you ready Eddie?" sounds on Tarkus: a nice joke. A break in a serious album.