A LIVE LEGACY

Only a barbarian would fail to notice that from the beginning, the sound of this duo bears a striking resemblance to a classic prog supergroup. A lucky man might say "I love that classic band. But they stopped playing this style of music decades ago." But the endless enigma is: Why do two very obviously talented musicians play in a style created by others? Is it the only way they could get gigs? Well, there is a time and a place for it. But they could be accused of being pirates.

Seriously, I love classic ELP. But they gave up on their sound after "Brain Salad Surgery". So where does one go for high flying classical based bombastic keyboards? These guys are very good at what they do. Bob Wise is very close, but not quite up to Palmer's precision, and Allen Bondar may actually be a faster (but not more clever) keyboard wizard than Keith himself. While not a single riff was taken from any ELP song, the feel of each piece is so similar to the bombastic ELP tracks that the comparison is unavoidable.

I will take a star away for lack of originality in the sound, but there are lot's of bands here that are nearly as close to a classic prog band's sound as these guys are to ELP (*cough* *cough* Starcastle *cough* cough* Marillion *cough* *cough*). That shouldn't diminish the enjoyment.