To the skeptical critic, the dark underbelly of progressive rock has always been its tendency to embrace excess\u2014as in, make it bigger, and bolder, and weirder, with all the pretension and theatricality you can possibly muster. Emerson, Lake & Palmer\u2019s Brain Salad Surgery<\/i> offers a virtual master class in prog excess, with some of the finest recorded examples of bold, dynamic prog arriving alongside at least one or two genuine head-scratchers. <\/p>\n
Emerson, Lake & Palmer was regarded as one of the first supergroups, combining the talents and ambitions of keyboardist Keith Emerson from The Nice, bassist\/vocalist (as well as guitarist\/producer) Greg Lake from King Crimson, and drummer Carl Palmer from Atomic Rooster. But the group made its mark by progressing from those fertile roots into a brasher, grander, keyboard-heavy sound that, like Crimson, seemed at times as though it was playing the darker yang to fellow progressive rockers Yes\u2019s lighter, airier yin. In concert, Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman would don a sparkly cape; Emerson, on the other hand, was known to wedge certain keys down with large knives while soloing. The contrast is telling.<\/p>\n
Brain Salad Surgery<\/i> found the by-now veteran trio ELP continuing to push farther and farther outside of the rock box, combining overt classical influences with jazz, music hall, and theatrical styles, even as keyboard maestro Emerson, alongside comrade\/competitor Wakeman, was busy pioneering electronic experimentalism within the rock context. Boundaries were the enemy, and ELP attacked them with determination and vigor.<\/p>\n
Opener \u201cJerusalem\u201d presents a strikingly pretty reimagination of a traditional English tune, with stately Hammond organ fanfares and a reverent, resonant lead vocal from Lake. The mood shifts immediately, though, as \u201cToccata\u201d finds Emerson transforming the Fourth Movement of Alberto Ginastera\u2019s 1st Piano Concerto into a showcase for The Deranged Keyboard Scientist let loose in his lab. It\u2019s seven-plus minutes of Moog-driven madness, strange and dissonant, occasionally compelling but more often baffling, as when Emerson unleashes a barrage of seemingly random electronic sound effects over a chaotic Palmer solo between roughly 5:15 and 6:15. Lake is more or less a bystander throughout.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
For neck-snapping contrast, it\u2019s hard to beat following the discombobulating \u201cToccata\u201d with the gentle precision of Lake\u2019s terrific ballad \u201cStill\u2026 You Turn Me On.\u201d This virtual solo track finds guitarist Lake alternating gorgeous acoustic picking on the verses with flashes of wah-wahed out electric on the choruses, as Emerson and Palmer keep to the edges of the frame. The bridge (\u201cEvery day a little sadder \/ A little madder \/ Someone get me a ladder\u201d) might feel like a clever thought taken a step too far, but isn\u2019t that ELP in a nutshell? As if to prove the point, the shimmering \u201cStill\u2026\u201d is followed by \u201cBenny The Bouncer,\u201d a bizarre little 2:21 novelty tune sung in ragged cockney couplets that ends up feeling like a bad joke explainable only by drugs and\/or poor judgment.<\/p>\n
All of this is really just the opening act, though, for the headliner waiting in the wings. \u201cKarn Evil 9\u201d\u2014all three \u201cimpressions,\u201d four parts and 29 minutes of it\u2014is one of the milestone epics in the entire progressive rock genre. Audacious and urgent from the start, its dynamic arrangement provides multiple opportunities for each player to shine. The opening section finds Emerson complementing his own forceful organ work with superb synth accents while Lake parries with assertive bass and powerful vocals, and Palmer drives the band from the bottom end. The lyric, with contributions from frequent Crimson lyricist Pete Sinfield, is a circus of horrors and quite macabre, but delivered with such musical and vocal flair that it feels celebratory. <\/p>\n
The first movement (\u201c1st<\/sup> Impression\u201d) is a bundle of nervous energy and arguably the high point of the group\u2019s entire career; this is prog bombast at its finest. The second is more classical in structure, a seven-minute instrumental jam featuring some of Emerson\u2019s zippiest speed-jazz piano excursions, with Palmer counter-pointing from behind his massive kit. Emerson\u2019s long rippling runs soon transition into a syncopated world-rhythm section with synthesized steel drums and all manner of other electronic wizardry, before falling back to a quiet, atmospheric middle section and eventually finishing up with a fresh, new upbeat piano segment.<\/p>\n Lake returns in force for the third movement, er, impression, which starts off with an apocalyptic, doomsday feel. A bright, steady bridging segment then transitions into a final five-minute jam that\u2019s full-tilt aggro, managing to be both earthy and avant garde, gritty and pompous. The suite wraps with a final flourish, a pulsing, channel-phasing synth loop that puts an exclamation point on the proceedings.<\/p>\n (Side note: The 2011 Sony CD reissue adds two tracks issued on the subsequent Works Vol. 2<\/i> collection that originated with the Brain Salad Surgery<\/i> sessions; neither is at all essential. \u201cBrain Salad Surgery\u201d is a throw-away, with Lake growling an incoherent lyric over a funk-inflected backing track, while the annoyingly titled \u201cWhen The Apple Blossoms Bloom By The Window Of Your Mind I\u2019ll Be Your Valentine\u201d is a spacier, more experimental instrumental bit.)<\/p>\n Widely regarded as a classic\u2014and certainly the ELP album that I gravitated toward in my own prog-rock glory days\u2014Brain Salad Surgery<\/i> might be uneven in the early going, but it finishes with one of the most memorable and musically potent epics in the entire prog genre. It would be this trio\u2019s last great recording, but it was a corker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":24739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5955],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-44399","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-emerson-lake-palmer","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44399"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}