In the early-mid seventies, my teenage attitude to prog rock "supergroup" Emerson, Lake & Palmer mirrored that which I had toward their fellow proggers, Yes. I loathed them and everything they stood for - extended, indulgent LP side-long tracks, quasi-classical keyboard doodling, pompous or high-pitched vocals, lyrical pretentiousness, a predilection for fantasy in both lyrics and cover art and, above all else - as with Genesis and Pink Floyd - my contempt for virtually every boy I knew who liked them (girls didn't like this sort of thing, on the whole, certainly not younger teenage ones). I hated those boys and their haughty musical taste, so I developed an intrinsic and - I have always thought - healthy aversion to all things prog.
Furthermore, as much as many people were talking about David Bowie or Roxy Music in 1972-73, it was albums by ELP or Yes that shifted units and often made it to number one in the album charts. In so many ways, theirs was the sound of the early seventies. My attitude to stuff like this these days has changed in that I feel that t must have had something about it to be so popular, so I must give it a chance. That is what I am doing and my reviews come not from the position of an ELP enthusiast but from the point of view of a detached observer, many years after the group's time.
The music is centred around Keith Emerson's mighty keyboard sound, which either grates or enthrals. For me, it is probably 70% of the former and 30% fascinating. Either way, the bloke could play, couldn't he? So could his mates - guitarist Greg Lake and powerful drummer Carl Palmer. So, let's get those air keyboard poses out...
For all my innate doubts regarding ELP's output and my reactions to their music, I simply have to concede that this was a ground-breaking and highly influential album.
Many progressive rock groups and indeed, heavy rock ones were inspired by this adventurous, innovative merging of classical keyboards and heavy rock on what was largely an instrumental and highly uncommercial album. It was amazing, really, that inaccessible stuff like this was such a huge success at the height of singalong pop.
The Barbarian kicks things off with some sombre, sonorous organ, followed by heavy riffing before we get a delightful piano and cymbal part. It really was quite unique at the time and remains so. Take A Pebble starts out sounding like, would you believe, The Style Council (so Weller secretly listened to this?) before progressing into sort of freestyle jazz workout, full of infectious percussion and piano bits. It is actually quite un-prog in parts. The guitar bit after about four minutes is very Yes, however.
Knife-Edge is a heavy, organ and drum-dominated rock track with a sound and vocal delivery influenced many a heavy rock band, subsequently. I have to say that I quite like it. It has a late sixties freakiness about it lingering around in its organ breaks. Some of the heavy riffs are speaker-shaking.
The Three Fates is full of gothic-sounding organ that sounds like Keith Emerson had gone berserk in his local church. It breaks into some Latin, rhythmic parts half way through and Emerson's freeform jazz piano must have inspired Mike Garson (of David Bowie fame).
Tank is a showcase for Carl Palmer's solo drumming and also gives us some nice heavy guitar riffing and sumptuous bass. Drum soloes now became de rigeur for every live prog or heavy rock gig. They soon became associated with seventies musical excess but here, on this track, Palmer's work is most invigorating.
Lucky Man is a nice ethereal, folky ballad featuring a sublime bass line and some excellent lead guitar. It was successful as a single and is one of my favourite tracks of theirs. It is almost like something Led Zeppelin would do on LZ III in places. It is most un-ELP in sound and style. The track is far more compact than much of their more rambling work and is far the better for it. It does sit rather incongruously with the rest of the album, however. I much prefer the looser and varied material on this album to the half-inspired, half throwaway fare that the more well-known Tarkus provided.
