Emerson, Lake & Palmer

We were forewarned by the British music press that Emerson, Lake & Palmer would be a
"super-group," and indeed it was hard to see how they could miss. An extraordinarily
inventive and tasteful organist, Keith Emerson, as the prime moving force of the Nice, was
one of the few performers capable of holding his own against the flood of guitar oriented
heavy rock groups of the ten thousand ton variety. He is also one of rock's most... More >

This opens with "The Barbarian," a keyboard showpiece (not to slight all the flailing and booming underneath) replete with the shifts of tempo, time, key, and dynamics beloved of these bozos. Does the title mean they see themselves as rock and roll Huns sacking nineteenth-century "classical" tradition? Or do they think they're like Verdi portraying Ethiopians in Aida? From such confusions flow music as clunky as these heavy-handed semi-improvisations and would-be tone poems. Not to mention word poems. (Grade: C)