Emerson, Lake and Palmer – Trilogy Review

Emerson, Lake and Palmer – Trilogy (Cotillion SD 9903)

Trilogy, following suit with the previous three Emerson, Lake and Palmer albums, will be the type of album insecure rock ‘n roll fans break out at a small get-together and pretend to really get into. Just as they did with Tarkus, Pictures at an Exhibition and the first one, they’ll sit around nod their heads, bite their lips, close their eyes and anxiously await the last cut’s end so they can exchange “far-outs” and dash home to purge themselves with Black Oak Arkansas.

I find ELP’s fourth album to be a colorless, mechanical, performance of listlessly complicated material. In short, buddy, it bores the fuck outta me.

For too long ELP has put themselves in an almost “untouchable” position. Critics and record-buyers alike have been afraid to criticize them for fear of losing musical face. For fear of being thought of as less than prestigious. So they veil their ambivalence in phrases like “swirling arrangements”, “dizzying riffs”, “mystical moods” and others.

Trilogy is painfully unsatisfying. Unaccessible at any level . . . it’s a sad fact that although they group has the musical talent to deserve their newly attained superstardom, their musical taste and knowledge is juvenile enough not to recognize that success based on awe is not only unhealthy, but temporary.

Courtesy of the Door (aka San Diego Door) – Cameron Crowe –  October 23, 1972  – November 2, 1972