fartzarellah's Full Review: Emerson, Lake & Palmer [Limited] by Emerson, Lake ...
If you say Emerson, Lake & Palmer ten times fast, it ends up sounding something like "Emershlakenbalmer." The reason I tell you this seemingly useless piece of information is because you will become so excited upon hearing ELP's debut recording that you are bound to end up shouting the band's name repeatedly in a wild gush of incoherent syllables as you skip uncontrollably down the sidewalk, totally oblivious to any disapproving glares of protective parents and horrified screams from their children. As you fly past in a whirlwind of demented excitement, all that will matter to you is:
Emershlakenbalmer! Emershlakenbalmer!
Okay, you might not be that excited, but I sure had fun writing about it!
On with the review I guess...
To many, particularly to those who worship at the altar of Sid Vicious and Lester Bangs, Prog Rock was nothing more than overindulgent, excessive, self-important, kitschy, pompous, pretentious, long-winded crapola (kind of like this sentence.) However, people like myself, who actually enjoy writing and reading such sentences, sometimes bring up the counter-claim that you can't get any more self important than Lester Bangs was and you can't have any less musical talent than Sid Vicious did. So, the prog rockers actually had some musical training and wrote complex, intricate compositions that your drug addled minds could not comprehend. Get over it!
The punkers and wild eyed speed freaks did have a point though, and prog rock did go too far with the prog element at times. ELP in particular laid some real bombs during their career ( I think Brain Salad Surgery is very nearly completely awful). The trio's first album (1971), on the other hand, hit upon a perfect mix that they would never completely capture again (although the album Tarkus comes close). The band stayed within their capabilities and came up with creative, inspired music here (with the exception of Emerson's attempt at being a classical composer on The Three Fates...more on that later.)
Keith Emerson (formerly of The Nice) didn't just claim to be a piano virtuoso; he was and is one. Greg Lake (who had already made it big as the front-man for King Crimson) was not only a handsome fellow but also had a handsome, smoking choir boy voice and played a pretty mean bass guitar, not to mention a fairly mean regular old guitar from time to time. And Carl Palmer (from Atomic Rooster. Remember them?) kicked assz on the drums! He did things like "budda-da-budda-da-brrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRR!" without blinking an eye! So there! Although Emerson is clearly the dominant band member (keyboard solos fill the disc) Lake and Palmer get to show their stuff as well (on Take A Pebble and Tank respectively).
In general, the music takes equal parts classical, jazz, heavy metal, folk, and 60s psychedelia, then throws them into a blender. The resultant concoction is surprisingly tasty and full of vitamin C. There are only six tracks total, half of those being instrumentals and the other half having lengthy instrumental sections. Lots of improvisation, but a good deal of structured parts as well. Did I mention it sounds best when you are eating peanut butter and jelly? Ahem.
A quick run down of the tracks:
The Barbarian (4:27)
What we have here, ya see, is a classical composition for piano (Bela Bartok's Allegro Barbaro from 1910 or so) done in a fuzzed out, rocked up, jazzed out style. Bartok liked to take quasi Hungarian folk melodies and harmonize them in non-traditional ways. The main theme here, for instance, consists of an A-minor pentatonic melody played in octaves pitted against an F# minor perpetuum mobile in the bass. It sounds quite barbarous! The addition of distorted instruments and drums seems a very natural addition to the piece. I think Bela would have been proud. The only thing he might not like is that ELP took any odd phrase lengths and squared them out for the purpose of...ahhh...dancing? I actually prefer the ELP version for the most part, especially their recomposing of the middle section, which ends up sounding like the music that accompanied the trolley on Mr. Rogers. (What's up with all of these Mr. Rogers references in mine and the Matzaballman's reviews lately?) The only thing I find overblown about the ELP version is the ending, which gets a bit too scary for me. Oh well. Nobody's perfect.
LONG REVIEW ALERT! LONG REVIEW ALERT! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!
I will sum up the rest.
Take A Pebble (12:32) is a beautiful tune with somewhat pretentious lyrics that are embarrassing to sing along with. Nonetheless, a nice, mellow, relaxing track with amazing piano work and a "yeee-hawish" country boy acoustic guitar solo from Greg Lake.
Knife-Edge (5:04) is the closest to heavy metal that ELP ever got. It frickin rocks! And since this is ELP, there is a little Bach-like two part invention in the middle (it may be more than Bach-like, could be a direct rip-off). Greg Lake sounds like he wants to kill you! Raaarrrr! More neat boy lyrics, so I just don't sing along and I'm happy.
The Three Fates (7:46) isn't totally bad, but neither is it very good. It sounds nice, but it falls apart as a classical composition. Yeah, all of the other songs on here would fall apart as classical pieces as well, but they do not try to be so I don't judge them in that way. Amazing, virtuosic piano work that just doesn't manage to go anywhere. Keep it in the practice room Keith.
Tank (6:49) I have no idea how to classify the music for this one. I suppose it is a sort of classical/jazz hybrid with a walking bass line, military drum beat and baroque-like figurations in the beepy harpsichord sound over top. I love how it all comes together. And the drum solo is one of the best of its kind from that period (beats Moby Dick and Rat Salad)
Lucky Man (4:36) This used to be one of my absolute favorite songs when I was six years old and really into Dungeons & Dragons. Mainly just acoustic guitar and Greg Lake singing about some nameless medieval king who gets old and dies. Nice imagery in the lyrics, especially in the lines
...ladies by the score
all dressed in satin
and waiting by the door
;)
Really though, great melody, nice simple song, good guitar solo, killer moog synthesizer solo at the end that makes me picture a warrior on the edge of time waving his magic sword in the air, causing it to make a sound like "zhhhhheeeeoooo, weeeeeooooo!"
To recap my main points:
Emershlakenbalmer, Mr. Rogers, yeee-hawish, Raaarr!, and zhhhhheeeeoooo, weeeeeoooo!
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