The Best Of... - Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Live At The Royal Albert Hall - Emerson Lake & Palmer

with similar bands of the time, such as Camel and Pink Floyd. The core line-up consists of three members, although over the years this has changed on occassions - Keith Emerson, Greg Lake and Carl Palmer, hence the acronym ELP, formed from the initials of their surnames. Keith Emerson is perhaps the most widely-known member of the group, purely on the strength of his amazing keyboard talents. His work forms the group's main sound which made them famous, which is largely synth and drum solos. He is complimented by Lake on vocals and guitars, and Palmer on drums (who also features heavily on many tracks). Prog-rock is notoriously inaccessible for new listeners, ...

Brain Salad Surgury - Emerson, Lake and Palmer

as ever, manouvering themselves well through all the complex rhythms, which keep the listener interested. The next song is "Still...You Turn Me On", a nice little Greg Lake song which begins as a sort of acoustic ballad, but then the more dramatic sound of Lake's wah-wah guitar enters at every chorus. To me, this is one of the better short songs on the album, and shows the other side to ELP's sound. The second last piece is a tongue-in-cheek song called "Benny the Bouncer" which, behind the amusing lyrics, has Keith Emerson playing some honkey-tonk piano, which adds to the humour. The last piece on the album is the epic "Karn ...

Brain Salad Surgury - Emerson, Lake and Palmer

The best starter, before the main course, is however yet to come and enters in the form of ‘Still…you turn me on’. This is classic Greg Lake in the style of early King Crimson or ‘Lucky Man’ from ELP’s first album and a great love song. Forget ‘Benny the Bouncer’, a filler, before we have the main set of the album ‘Karn Evil 9’ in two parts. Interestingly (and worryingly) the sleeve notes state that vocals are courtesy of Emerson with Lyrics by Lake. Fortunately they are incorrect as Lake takes both parts as move into the first part of this epic piece. Basically ‘Karn Evil 9’ is about a ...