Review: Emerson, Lake & Palmer - s/t

Emerson, Lake & Palmer
(Island, Manticore 1970)


1. The Barbarian
2. Take A Pebble
3. Knife-Edge
4. The Three Fates
- Clotho (Royal Festival Hall Organ)
- Lachesis (Piano Solo)
- Atropos (Piano Trio)
5. Tank
6. Lucky Man

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If you're aspiring to get into these guys, I would strongly advice you to do so from the very beginning with the recording of their 1970 performance on the Isle of Wight Festival (released in 1997) in order to truly acknowledge just how big, bold, brash and professional they were from the very start. Now, since I've made it a personal rule not to review any live albums, I won't include it here but I may as well give away that it consists of half their debut, a full performance of "Pictures at an exhibition" and a killer version of "Rondo", inherited from The Nice. And it is important to take this performance in account because apart from a warmup gig somewhere, it's their first concert ever (or as the announcer puts it: "their very first debut performance", just as not to understate the fact) which speaks volumes about their braveness. Of course, they were already seasoned musicians but as a unity to throw themselves out in the air with no safety net and into their already fully charged set with such stamina as they did, and at a legendary music festival at that, is something whose equivalence I am yet to see in the music business. I'd go as far as saying that if anything, that very performance effectively landmarked the 70's and you-will-have-to-get-that-album-at-all-costs in order to grasp what these guys were all about! (The cannons have to be seen to be fully appreciated though).

Now, let's talk about this here album. As I said, half of it is to be found on the Isle of Wight setlist, more precisely the first half. It greets you with a swooping fuzzed-out-of-hell bassline and a dissonant organ swirling all around in "The barbarian", heralding the way of something that instantly lets you know that this is gonna be otherworldly. Essentially it's a reworked piece originally penned by Béla Bartók but I don't have much to say about that since I haven't heard the original. This here workout rules though and it was used as a concert opener during the beginning of their career. Past the gruelling intro it transforms into a jolly piano piece that vaguely resembles the aforementioned "Rondo", before finally crashing down where it once begun. Swell! Another hard-hitting track is "Knife edge", once again partly based upon some works of Bach and Leoš Janácek but it's the surprisingly heavy verse parts that makes this one a tour de force, with a dead simple, almost Uriah Heep-ish in nature, descending riff upon which Lake weaves his powerful voice. Of course, classical purists will probably wrinkle their nose at this supposed slaughter of classical stuff, but what business do those people have in rock music anyway? I mean, apart from telling you that Beatles aren't as profound as Tchaikovsky?

"The three fates" continues the classical excursion of Emerson, although this time he thought it up himself with the first part being all church organ, the second part being all piano and the third part a jazzy bolero-like shuffle on several pianos. It only goes to show just how skilled this dude is but as listenable music pieces it's not that much to write home about. The same goes for "Tank" in which Palmer at least proves himself worthy of a drum solo spot in contrast to John Bonham (or even worse, Bill Ward) and the surrounding parts ain't half-bad either as Emerson spices things up with a clavinet on ultra-speed. And of course we have the all-time favourite "Lucky man" (no, not that Verve crap, you trendy nit-wit!) that Lake allegedly penned when he was only 12 years old. That's as may be, but it's a nice acoustic breather after all the instrumental onslaught which it winds up.

However, the real highlight is his other contribution "Take a pebble" which is only a mellotron away from being a bona-fide King Crimson track, only Crimson would ruin it with oceans of unlistenable drivel and name it "Moonchild". On here though, it's treated with multiple instrumental passages in between the grand and gorgeous verses on courtesy of Lake continuing the equally grand tradition of "Epitaph". Apart from that, they manage to squeeze in a fast and dexterious jazz-style interpretation of the verse melody on piano, a light-hearted acoustic country-ish shuffle to lighten things up and a fugue-like piano passage on which the whole band joins in to conclude it all before the final verse kicks in as if to remind you where we were. I tell ya, this track alone makes the album an essential listen and it remained a concert favourite for years to come.

All in all, an essential listen albeit slightly raw and it can't help but leave you with a feeling of underarrangement as a unity. That's not too surprising since it's A) their first and B) mainly built upon their live setting where instrumental show-offs were more essential than actual songcraft. The lengthy piano passages may scare away many an aspiring fan, and to be frank, I myself am not that keen on those parts either. The collective efforts on the other hand, make it well worth the money, especially on the first half of the record. You just have to look past the song-by-song presumption and digest it as a unity consisting of parts rather than actual songs. Or skip it for the time being and proceed to "Tarkus" or "Trilogy".