Emerson, Lake & Palmer's self-titled debut is definitely one of the best ways to kickstart a progressive rock band's career. By actually making a very progressive record. Maybe a little bit too progressive sometimes. You'll get what I mean, I'll carry on with the songs straight away.
Okay, even despite this album having only 6 tracks, it has some weak spots. The "too progressive" description fits some of the instrumental songs of the album. I'll get to them. The Barbarian is a ... read more
ELP's debut album is an amazing effort by the English supergroup. Every song is at least, very good, and some of them are just fucking amazing. I still feel amused when I hear the intro of "Take a Pebble", and I have always found mind-blowing the way Keith Emerson plays on this track.
Such a great little comfort album even if nothing here is that amazing. Songs like The Barbarian and Knife-Edge have amazing moments but also feature weaker sections. Nonetheless everything here is still great.
Yeah, it's the debut of a giant prog-rock supergroup, and plenty of people will likely tell you about all the musical virtuosity and complexity of this album, blah, blah, blah. But if you only heard the first 15 seconds of distorted bass guitar that open this record, and very specifically that swell of sound flooding your ears as Lake plays with the volume knob, that's really enough to recommend it.
1 | The Barbarian 4:27 | 80 |
2 | Take a Pebble 12:32 | 83 |
3 | Knife-Edge 5:04 | 86 |
4 | The Three Fates 7:46
| 77 |
5 | Tank 6:49 | 81 |
6 | Lucky Man 4:37 | 92 |