EMERSON, LAKE AND PALMER
Spectacular! Spectacular!
- EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER by Joel Larsson
- EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER by Kevin Baker
In 1970 was prog still on its rise, The Nice had founded the style and King Crimson developed it. Yes still played covers, and Genesis had released one pop album, none had heard of Gentle Giant and Jethro Tull still played blues. Maybe the Nice keyboardist Keith Emerson, Atomic Rooster/Crazy World of Arthur Brown drummer Carl Palmer and the King Crimson bassist Greg Lake saw a future within the uprising bunch of young, innovative bands and wanted to make sure to be superior to them, so they founded a trio with only some of the most proficient rock musicians at the time. Or maybe they just wanted to join each other in order to have use for the others technical skills, or maybe they founded the group just for fun, I don't know, but it's a worthy thing to discuss.
Keith Emerson is usually THE prog keyboardist, only really
threatened by Rick Wakeman (Yes), Tony Banks (Genesis) and John Evan (Jethro
Tull). The difference between them is that Emerson also is a skilled songwriter
and have written lots of prog classics, while Evan had nothing to do with the
Tull songs (Ian Anderson held him back) and neither Wakeman composed many songs
for Yes. Of course, he has made a quite successful solo career after that, but
too late to fit among these early prog goldies. Tony Banks composed many songs
for Genesis, but both his playing style and composing is too pretentious and
pompous to really match Emerson. So Emerson wins the battle. His own way to
handle the moog synths and different kinds of acoustic claviatures is totally
unique, and without him, ELP would no longer be such an innovative band, because
neither Lake's bass playing nor Palmer's drumming were far as original as Emerson's
keyboarding.
Greg Lake was one of the absolutely best bassists at the time, doubling on guitars,
and together with Chris Squire (Yes) and John Wetton (King Crimson), he is one
of the most famous prog bassists ever. They all have been losing ground to newer
bassists like Tony Levin and Stanley Clarke, but the trio remains in our memories
because of the great work they did for the prog. Lake is also a song/textwriter
of first class. His songs are often quite calm, harmonic and beautiful, but
he's always willing to mix it together with Emerson and Palmer's rather expressive
and complex style of writing a song. As a textwriter is he obviously inspired
by his mate from King Crimson, Pete Sinfield, whose weird, apocalyptic lyrics
has inspired many a weirdo through the years, but his lyrics seldom has a story,
they're just some innovative lines of almost Biblic words, while Lake constantly
manages to write understandable lyrics about anything from a man with his horses
and ladies to armadillo tanks and computers which rules the world. OK, the mentioned
Sinfield cooperates with Lake on the last example, but anyways... Lake has also
got one of the strongest voices through prog's history, and I don't think that
no-one except Peter Gabriel can threat him here.
Carl Palmer is simply put an excellent percussioninst. Only one other percussionist from the first era of prog, Bill Bruford (King Crimson, Yes), is as acknowledged as Palmer.
Well, at last we got to this album, which opens with "The Barbarian", i.e. crunchy guitars with eminent keyboarding, which moves over into a rather jolly piano solo accompanied by silent but driving drums. As a whole it's a powerful album opener, and it ultimately well sets the mood for the next tracks.
"Take a Pebble" is a darn long tune, 12 minutes. It's a tune by Lake, and it opens as a very beautiful ballad with a strong vocal melody. That vocal melody is actually masterful, not far from being a hardcore lullaby... It moves over into a solo on acoustic guitar by Lake, very relaxing and all that, but it passes by to a piano solo by Emerson, which also is pretty excellent. The song is quite non-complex, with some noises here and there, often it sounds nothing for a couple of seconds, but that only adds something to the greatness of the song. If you're a fan of King Crimson's "Epitaph" and "In the Wake of Poseidon", look here; this may not sound like those but it might as well be what you need.
"Knife-Edge" is trying to be hard-rocking and complex, but it doesn't really work. It seems as if it doesn't come from the heart, it's rather some sort of deadly serious filler, and it doesn't work as good as it should. Greg and the band tries to sound as a hard rock band, whcih they don't are, so summa summarum: Failure. This of course doesn't mean that the song is bad; the riffs are good, and it's a well-worked song, it's obvious that the band members weren't new in the studio.
"The Three Fates" is an Emerson composition, mostly with himself in the limelight. It's divided into three parts, all named by a Greek god, so the first part is called "Clotho" and features Keith on a Royal Festival Hall organ. The composition isn't very genius, and it sounds a wee bit pretentious. The second part, the piano solo "Lachesis", has a good, well-worked melody, eminently performed by Emerson who really exposes his great talent. The third part is called "Atropos" and is a piano trio. It's built upon three different piano themes, all played at the same time, accompanied by Lake and Palmer (who, BTW, has to use some really cheesy rattles. The whole thing is too chaotic and non-structured for my tastes, so the only part of "The Three Fates" that I really like is the second, the excellent piano solo.
"Tank" is composed by Emerson and Palmer, opening with some cool bass sounds and then moving over into something which is far too chaotic for me to describe, but it shows the talents of mr. Emerson and mr. Palmer ultimately well. I don't like it very much, though, and you get something like an overdose when listening to this and "The Three Fates" both in a row.
"Lucky Man" is an e-x-c-e-l-l-e-n-t pop tune, with amazingly catchy choruses and verses which should have gien the band a hit single. It's Lake's composition, and in general, it's his compositions which are the best this time.
If you've had the good will to read through this whole review, you've probably noticed that I've bashed one half of the songs, and still given the album a 13. That rating is what I gave it after some four-five listenings, and I'll abide the rating. The problem is that I've listened to this album too many times, so I'm kinda tired of most of it besides "Take a Pebble" and "Lucky Man", which I can't get enough of. So now you know why I'm the opposite of myself while give the album an excellent rating though still bashing the songs. It's a real good album, actually. Sounds fresh, the band hasn't yet stagnated.
So there. This must be the longest review I've ever written, and I'm kinda brainwashed right now... Hope you enjoyed the review...
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Good guggamugga can these guys play. Nobody can deny that fact, not a single solitary person. However, plenty of people deny that they could play in a manner that was meant to please ears other than those of Keith Emerson. Well, I deny the deniers, those dirty undeniably dubiously opined dumkopfs! I rather like this album meself, even The Three Fates.
However, let us not talk of such silly things so early into the review. Now is the time designated to discuss persoanl matters that none of y'all give a rip about to fill space. This is how we "professional writers" do things----baffle you with bull and THEN get down to business. Ha!
I feel the necessity to amend all my romantic statements in my past reviews. Being a teen male, my lovelife changes, on the average, 4.5 times a DAY, so take anything I said about Leah or Ashley or any other chick with a major grain of salt. Perhaps even an entire shaker. As it is, I really don't like any one person right now, though there is a girl in New Jersey who's quite prominent on the ole romantic radar screen. However, a 1500 mile difference kinda makes the whole couple thing difficult. Oh well, there are lots of girls down here, all of whom think I'm an oddball! A writer's life is hard....
At any rate, ELP stands for Emerson, Lake, and Palmer; they were all virtuosos at something or another; they were a prog supergroup, they formed a political party of the same name (that is, ELP) in an African nation whose name rhymes with "golly"; they took over the nation and now rule it as an absolute dictatorship in which all the people bow to a golden image of an armadillo tank each day; and the band also regularly sacrifices goats to themselves while eating fried bean curd in Szechuan sauce. OK, perhaps I exaggerated some.
Well, before the whole Africa ordeal, they recorded this debut which IMHO stands as a definitive prog recording. How could anyone deny the definitiveness of such a song as Take A Pebble? A 12 minute ditty somewhat similar in tone to Epitaph by King Crimson (well, I think so anyways, and I don't give a rip if you disagree), it features Greg Lake's AWESOME singing, Keith Emerson's gorgeous piano work, and tasteful drumming from Carl Palmer. The opening track, The Barbarian (aka Gary Condit's Hungarian cousin), is excellent as well. Very aggressive sounding, mostly courtesy of Mr. Lake's gruff guitarwork, though Mr. Emerson's organ and piano playing certainly shines as well.
Elsewhere, we have.........a RADIO STANDARD! A proggy radio hit which I love called Lucky Man which features some acoustic guitar, a horned toad, chicks in satin, a bloody death, and the greatest useage of the synthesizer in music as Keith Emerson does this wild swooping fadeout that blow my mind everytime I hear it. I said yeah, Yeah, YEAH, WOO! HOW COME YA, HOW COME YA PLAY SO GOOD? Sorry, got carried away there.
Well, we've hit the highest points. Unfortunately, we do have to come down some. Out of the remaining three pieces, two of them are decent. The Three Fates is a keyboard suite courtesy of Mr. Emerson that has a church organ part, a piano part (my favorite), and a jammier one with some drums. Knife Edge is dark like The Barbarian, but it just doesn't do it for me. It IS good, though. However, good is not the adjective for Tank, a drum solo. I hate drum solos. They suck tremendously. However, I can forgive the boys and rate this highly because the high stuff is beyond 1st rate.
My rating------same as yours for it, Joel
OK, King Crimson might be the first. But they made a song, repeated it, and called the first reprise one thing and the second reprise another thing. That was the true beginning of "epic" prog, and they followed up the concept and made a track with three different parts, each with a name of their own, and again it was called "epic prog". And here comes ELP and makes seven different songs, puts them all together, each one with an own name, and this is the DEFINITIVE beginning of "epic" prog. A thing which most other prog bands has tried at least once. ELP's final result was the "Tarkus" suite, including "Eruption", "Stones of Years", "Iconoclast", "Mass", "Manticore", "The Battlefield" and "Aquatarkus"
Another, quite "new" feature on this album was that the epic is side-long, one thing which became really popular to do at this time in prog's history. Almost every prog band at the time tried it. Again, ELP weren't the first to make it, I remember that The Nice made a side-long tune once before, and lots of avantgarde bands had done it, but The Nice weren't really accepted as a member of the exclusive prog club at the time, they were a bit too early. Keith Emerson, pre-Nice guy as he was, wanted to make the critics pay attention to this revolutionary way of making rock music. The critics really payed attention this time, and most of them praised it. The "Tarkus" suite has a whole story behind it, where the armadillo tank has been buried as an egg in the earth for many, many years, but within an eruption, it awakes and fools around for some while, bringing death and destruction the the Earth, colonized by different kinds of prehistoric birds and militant grasshoppers. The he meets a manticore, which hurts the armadillo tank so badly that the tank flees to the river, taking shelter in the water.
The first part, "Eruption", fades in with a huge crescendo, moving over into some really good keyboarding by Emerson (well, what did we expect from such a virtuoso?). "Stones of Years" is either a heavy ballad or a slow rocker, I don't know which, but it has some really fine vocals and a good bass, getting darker and darker, accompanying Emerson's keyboards. "Iconoclast" is mostly a keyboard duet, though it's played by Emerson alone, awesome man! It's accompanied by Palmer's fast, booming drums. "Mass" opens with a catchy guitar riff, then moving over into a quite weird, almost jazzy pop tune. Great vocals, Greg! The part contains a keyboard solo, which together with some really powerful guitar tones is the beginning of a repeat of the part. Then comes "Manticore", where the armadillo tank gets his mortal wound. It's an instrumental, quite non-saying part, though it has some really interesting drums/piano interplay, and it quickly moves over into "The Battlefield", the only part which is written by Lake, all other are by Emerson, (which explains the lots of keyboard solos in them). "The Battlefield" is a dark, apocalyptic tune, containing energized vocals by Greg Lake and also the main theme in all those parts, a keyboard (of course) theme, with an extra terrestrial touch. Grag also has a guitar solo, where he really gets the guitar wheeping in the blasted battlefield...moody. "Aquatarkus" features some really ugly moog tunes, but they kinda work, and together with Carl's marching drums, it's a good intro to the "Re-Eruption", again with nasty keyboards and almighty accompanishment by Greg and Carl. So that was the "Tarkus" suite - a darn good thing, quite makes the whole album, 'cos the second side isn't really as breathtaking as this first side.
Well, the second side opens with "Jeremy Bender", a funny, good-moody piece of happiness and joy. It's part one of the Wild Western suite which they continued with "The Sheriff" on Trilogy and "Benny the Bouncer" on BSS.
"Bitches Crystal" is a rather pretentious rocker with a rolling piano/bass riff in the background, different Emerson solos and Lake sometimes screaming the lyrics. It's intelligently written, but it lacks spontaneousity, and so it's not a very fun listen, unlike the previous.
"The Only Way (Hymn)" is even more pretentious, using some Bach with darn pretentious lyrics (what is this, Greg??), or what do you say about "Can you believe/God makes you greed/Why did he loose/Six million Jews"? Yeah, yeah, the lyrics represents some interesting Biblic themes, but they're among Greg's worst.
"Infinite Space (Conclusion)" is the continuing part of "The Only Way", and features Keith playing solo. C'mon, Keith, what's the matter with you? These solos aren't even very difficult to play! We expect something more breathtaking from you! Maybe we're unfair here, but this instrumental track does nothing but promotes you playing boring solo stuff, so at least you could feed us with some of your virtuosity.
"A Time and a Place" is something like a collage of different themes, where the vocal melody doesn't really fit the other themes, and the song quite degenerates. It's still a cool listen, though.
"Are You Ready Eddy?" is a darn speedy rock'n'roller a'la the 50's, though now revised with a speedier bass, some rocky drums and some piano virtuosity. The song is worth to be the "2nd best song" on this album, 'cos it's really buttkickin' fun! It's dedicated to the well-known prog producer Eddie Offord, who also has worked with, among others, Yes.
So there this was a darn terrific experience bar some less successful tunes on the second side go and get it and goodnight.
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Ahem, well, you've got quite the whole album there. The self-indulgency isn't always present, it's rather one song alone ("Karn Evil 9", ya know?) which is quite a disaster if we talk about measurity. Ironically, the worst song on the album is the one which the album is built around. All three parts of it takes up 30 minutes of the album, including the whole second side and 9 mins of the first.
At this time had Pete Sinfield been the textwriter for King Crimson for nearly 5 years, and he felt that he had nothing further to do in the group, so, lured away by the pre-King Crimsoner Greg Lake, he joined ELP as a court lyricist. He was deeply ínvolved in the lyrics of "Karn Evil 9" and "Benny the Bouncer", but after this sejour he went away to make some other things, solo stuff and such.
The highlights this time are most of the songs from the first side, especially "Toccata", "Benny the Bouncer" and "Still...You Turn Me On". Let's forget about the first song, "Jerusalem", which is a new arrangement on the quite famous symphonic tune by Parry/Blake, though the organs is this time too overblown, and the vocals quite drowns into them. Of course it's a good song, otherwise they wouldn't have covered it, but I've got a feeling that the original version was better.
They also rearranges another classical tune, Ginastera's 1st piano concert, 4th movement, this time called "Toccata". The opening isn't too promising, some indulgent keys and percussion, moving over into a chaotic mess. The thing is that it's sort of a conscious indulgency, and the musical mess is actually as it should be. After this intro the tempo goes high and Emerson goes completely crazy while handing out one weird moog noise after another, at the same time as he manages to play some really difficult tunes on his claviatures which surely requires two or even three different hands! I wonder how the hell they managed to perform it live the way they did. Another part should be mentioned, where Emerson makes music out of some tons of darn indulgent moog tunes accompanied (or accompanying, shits the same) by Palmer's awesome, speedy drumming. The track is totally awesome!
"Still...You Turn Me On" is a Lake-written ballad, with darn gorgeous acoustic guitars and a quite brilliant vocal melody. Some cute Emerson keyboards are also present, but here they're tastefully put in the background and not completely dominating and overwhelming as before.
As already mentioned was Pete Sinfield partipiciant of the lyrics on "Benny the Bouncer", the third part of the Wild Western theme they begun with "Jeremy Bender" and continued with "The Sheriff". Just like these both, this one's a jolly tune played for fun. The lyrics are intelligent and funny, not the hard-interpretted lyrics from the Crimson days. It's a song about the bouncer Benny, who's an aggressive kind. One day he meets Savage Sid, an even angrier one. Of course they start quarreling, with Sid as the winner. He blows away Benny's head, and the people tries to put all the bloody pieces into one whole head again, but one puece's mising so Benny now serves as the bouncer at St. Peter's Gate. Asskicking song!
Then, my ladies and gentlemen, the "1st Impression part 1", the first part of the Karn Evil 9 suite, an answer to the answers to "Tarkus". The first impresion is about starving and shivering children and about "the greatest show in Heaven, Hell or Earth". About one third of the song is totally unnessessary jamming, only there in order to make the song longer. The "ordinary" parts of the song is really great, especially the late part about the great show which is really rocking, but those extra-jams really destroys the song. It ends up in a spacey keyboard outro, then comes "1st Impression part 2" which fades in with the same theme. At the beginning of the second part comes Greg and sings the most famous line in ELP's history; "Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends". It continues in the veins of the first part and seems to just fill up space. Then we have an Emerson-made instrumental, "2nd Impression", mostly promoting Emerson as usual when talking about Emerson instrumentals. The first impression had nothing to do with the "Computer vs. Mankind" theme which Karn Evil 9 is supposed to be about, but this is even worse! Why dedicate a non-saying instrumental to a 30-minute suite about the war between computer and man? Dunno, but the track is good, a pretty generic Emerson thingy, you know.
"3rd Impression" opens with ultra-pompous keyboard line and marching drums. That is what the 9-minute track is about. Prog diehards probably think it's terrific, but it's nothing to get deeper into if you don't like the goddamn prog. At least it's about the computer/human theme I've been talking about, and this is the impression which really IS "Karn Evil 9", the others are probably just there in order to make the track as long as possible. Anyways, the thirs impression ends up with a dialogue between Karn and Greg, looking like this: "G: I am all there is. KE9: NEGATIVE! PRIMITIVE! LIMITED! I LET YOU LIVE! / G: But I gave you life. KE9: WHAT ELSE COULD YOU DO? / G: To do what was right. KE9: I AM PERFECT! ARE YOU?"
Pretty pompous, but the moment is moody and saves the song.
So there. Worth to point out is that this album is a fan-favorite, even a prog-diehard favourite. There's people who feed on daily listen to "Karn Evil 9" and "Supper's Ready", but dammit, I'm not one of those, and if we believe percentage calculations, neither you are one.
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I'm pretty sad to say it, but that's it.
Oh well, this album was released on some obscure record label called Snapper
Music, and they obviously didn't lay down much work on it, except maybe cosmetically.
The album does make a good first impression, with a proggish cover and that,
it's even on two discs, but when it comes to read the liner notes, you'll
soon find out that they suck. I don't think that anybody who buys this album
doesn't already know everything about ELP's birth and their albums, and then
it becomes pretty pointless to read through a long introduction to the band.
The author of the text could at least tell something interesting about the band's
90's works, and this album is supposed to contain live material from the late
90's, right? And I would like some new comments from
the band members, not only old stuff from the 70's. Another big problem
with the CDs is that the selection generally are pretty crappy, with a couple
of really low points. It's also pretty obvious that Keith Emerson has lost a
pretty big part of his once so great musical skill, which is especially obvious
on "Piano Concerto No. 1: Third Movement, featuring Keith Emerson"
(stoopid name, by the way) where he has severe problems with keeping the tempo
during the difficult parts, and I suppose one can say that he has passed his
glory days. Obviously Greg Lake and Carl Palmer still has got it though, and
heck, Emerson is still a great player, just not as great as before, which I'd
appreciate if he would realise. It's sad, but the thing is that he just can't
play today what he could play some 30 years ago. Life goes on, you know. He
does pretty well on the other songs, though, but only pretty, and
he has some problems when the tempo is high. Some of the songs are actually
quite slowed down, probably because that Emerson need it. Hey, the songs are
supposed to be played FASTER when you play live, guys!
Have I mentioned all the bad things with this album,
then? There's actually some good things with it, too - Lake & Palmer sounds
just great, and Lake's voice might have grown darker, but it's still as
intense!
I'm sad to say this, but ELP would be a better (live) band with a younger
and still skilled keyboardist (Robert Wells!). That would rule. I suppose
ELP wouldn't be ELP, though, but hey - Palmer was once replaced by Cozy Powell,
right?
Anyways, the first disc opener "A Time And A Place" is too slow! It really sounds as if the guys playing are reaaallly old! Too bad, since it's a good performance. The second tune, the mentioned "Piano Concerto No. 1: Third Movement, featuring Keith Emerson" (as if they needed to point out that it's Emerson playing his own song!) is the ultimate example that Emerson isn't more than an ordinary piano player. It might have been interesting if he didn't drag on each note! "From The Beginning" is better then, Greg Lake really has a lot of resonance within his voice. It's pretty magic.
"Karn Evil 9: First Impression part 2" is pretty useless. Karn Evil 9 without the first and the third part? This tune is synonymous with ELP! It's a pretty okayosh performance, though. "Tiger In A Spotlight" is a speedy, catchy, and above all; funny tune, and it's a nice opposite to the earlier, slower tunes. The grotesque synths are actually pretty funny. "Hoedown" is also a nice little tune, even if it's not as cheerful as the earlier tune, and "Touch & Go" is pretty awesomely heavy, while I've never been much of a fan of neither "Knife Edge" nor "Bitches Crystal", even if they DO perform them pretty well.
The second disc opens with "Honk Tonk Train Blues", another funny, bluesy tune. Heck, it's something as usual as a 12-bar blues! Emerson doesn't sound bad at all! "Take A Pebble" is almost destroyed by Emerson, but the fact that it's a brilliant tune quite saves it. "Lucky Man" is, in overall, pretty good, while "Fanfare For The Common man/Blue Rondo à la Turk" opens most pompously with the first song, and it actually quite rules, during the first 4 minutes or so. The problem is that the rest is either a boring keyboard solo, or a just as boring drum solo. Mr. Palmer does rule, though. The album closer "21st Century Schizoid Man/America" opens with a pretty almighty version of the Schizoid Man, and I'd really like to hear the second part of the song too, but unfortunately the song moves over into a version of Bernstein/Sondheim's "America" where the first instrumental part should begin. Damnit.
Alright, I suppose this is not a bad album, but only from the point of an ELP fanatic, and I really wouldn't recommend you to spend 15 bucks on it as I did. I was actually about to order Welcome Back My Friend To The Show That Never Ends from an internet company, but the albums were in alphabetical order, so I just read through the list of available albums, and when I saw the title of this album, I thought "this is it", and ordered it without looking further down the list. Don't do the same mistake!
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