TRILOGY

I may have simply acquired this album at a bad time in my prog life. ELP was a band that, while very skilled and had a few good songs under their belt, could never really grip me with an entire album or fooling me into believing so. I had been unearthing rarer bands from the eclectic, fusion, RIO, Zeuhl and Krautrock genres, and the accessible symphonic stuff was getting old to me fast.

TRILOGY did little to change my perspective, even if I can still appreciate a few songs for what they're worth. Typically dismissed, ''Abbadon's Bolero'' is one of the songs I find as a highlight; something about the repetitive buildup causes me to gravitate towards it. Another highlight here is the rodeo-esque ''Hoedown'', where Emerson really goes wild on the Hammond. And believe it or not, Greg Lake's acoustic thing ''From the Beginning'' isn't half-bad either.

Everything else makes me ask ''Why?''. The title track is very well done in spots, especially the section right after the opening ballad, but isn't captivating long enough for me to enjoy it. The first three track encompassing that ''Endless Enigma'' suite are an enigma; I fail to see the point or relevance in any of those tracks barring the nice pianos in the ''Fugue'' section. ELP also has to find ways to goof off without us really needing to hear any of it. Sure, ''The Sheriff'' isn't really atrocious, but it's pointless. And, don't get me started on the ''death grunts'' lurking in ''Living Sin''...

I'll be a little soft in my assessment of TRILOGY saying that the average progster will extract more good from this album than I can. Start with the debut and TARKUS if you want to find ELP at their finest, then go on from there at your own risk.