Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Tarkus

Released - June 1971

Genre - Progressive Rock

Producer - Greg Lake

Selected Personnel - Keith Emerson (Keyboards/Synthesiser/Piano/Organ); Greg Lake (Vocals/Bass/Guitar); Carl Palmer (Drums/Percussion)

Standout Track - Tarkus

ELP are a weird one for me. Logically, they should be a shoe-in for being a band I'd really unreservedly enjoy, being one of the biggest figureheads of prog in the early 70s. But somehow, they've always managed to be the one big prog band that I've never really managed to shake my reservations about. For every genuinely brilliant prog song they made, there are a whole host of overly self-indulgent drum solos or pompous reworkings of classical fugues or directionless jazz interludes. They seem to sum up a lot of what makes prog occasionally tiresome for me, the insistence on pushing inventiveness and musical daring into territory that ends up being unlistenable and tuneless. That said, they did find time to make two albums that make it onto my list, most notably their later masterpiece Brain Salad Surgery, which almost manages to avoid self-indulgent noodling entirely (almost). Slightly less of an outright success but still hugely enjoyable is Tarkus, their breakthrough album.

By 1971, ELP had already achieved a certain degree of critical notice via their self-titled debut album. Keyboardist Keith Emerson of The Nice had met Greg Lake, the singer and bassist of King Crimson, in San Francisco and the two had found that their musical styles and approaches complemented each other well and that they found the idea of working on a musical project together exciting. Rounded out by drummer Carl Palmer, formerly of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and at the time playing with Atomic Rooster, the band set about making prog music with a slightly different structural model. Here, in contrast to most other prog bands of the time, the focus was very squarely on Emerson's keyboard wizardry. Though Lake would occasionally factor in the odd guitar line, his principal instrument was bass, and this was perhaps the first prog band where keyboard theatrics took precedence over guitar solos. Not only that, ELP would go on to take far greater direct influence from classical music than any other prog band. While prog in general was frequently built on the idea of writing rock music using classical techniques, ELP went the whole hog and ended up arranging convoluted rock reworkings of full classical suites, though whether this was a logical and justifiable extension of the essence of prog or just a show of pretentiousness that resulted in music lacking either the grandeur or nuance of actual classical music, or the heart and authenticity of rock, is a point for conjecture.

Their debut album consistedly largely of such shows of meandering pretentiousness, with the odd inspired moment, most notably the wonderful Lake-penned ballad "Lucky Man," a fairly straightforward acoustic guitar number fired into the stratosphere at the end by Emerson's space-age synthesiser wails. After that, the band had attempted to release a live recording of an arrangement of Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition, which their record label refused to release, fearing commercial failure. Though "Lucky Man" had been a minor hit, the band perhaps felt the need to up their game to really make a name for themselves, and their response to this pressure was Tarkus. Essentially, Tarkus is built entirely around the side-long title track, one of the great prog epics. It's supposedly a tale of "evolution in reverse" that has something to do with the armadillo-cum-armoured-tank creature on the album's cover, and perhaps something to do with some sort of war, though as with prog, the story being told is more or less irrelevant. What really impresses is the musical ability on show, and if there's one thing ELP really excel at, it's virtuoso showboating. Emerson and Palmer are given ample opportunity to let loose on "Tarkus" as it swirls from its ominous, portentous opening into its jazzy hard-rock middle section, via the chaotic and frenetic madness of Emerson's keyboards skills, before ultimately winding up with a sort of funereal battle march where Lake finally gets his chance to shine with his majesterial reverbed guitar solo. In general, Lake is the fairly stolid anchor holding the band together, while Emerson explodes and Palmer clatters around him, but every now and again he'll deliver a searing guitar line or nimble bass solo that reminds you of his talent. More than anything else, Lake's vocals, which can veer from a fiery shout to an angelic lilt, remind you of how keenly King Crimson felt the loss of such a great vocalist.

After the epic progressions of the title track, the album's second side can only be a let-down, but it's a shame just how true that is. Generally, on most prog albums built around a side-long epic, the band manage to find enough inspiration to make at least one other good song. Not so on Tarkus - though the honky-tonk silliness of "Jeremy Bender" is fairly good fun, the other songs on side two are generally directionless and do little to grab the attention. What the album really needs is another Lake acoustic number, as they so often end up being the highlights, as with "Lucky Man" or "From The Beginning" on Trilogy. Still, the band seem to be aware of the fact that they were running on fumes after the creativity of the title track, so mercifully none of these other songs outstay their welcome, with the second side being mercifully short. Still, though the second half is a huge letdown, "Tarkus" itself is a masterful showcase for the individual talents that made ELP great when they really put their minds to it. In the prog-hungry climate of the early 70s, the pomposity of Tarkus made it a huge hit, so much so that the band's record label reluctantly agreed to release Pictures At An Exhibition in the wake of it. The next full studio album would be Trilogy, an album which included the beautiful "From The Beginning" and an enormously exciting reworking of Aaron Copland's "Hoedown," but that otherwise retreated back into the instrumental self-indulgent noodling of their previous work. It wasn't until the following year's Brain Salad Surgery that the trio managed to recapture the spirit of invention and brilliance first exhibited here and deliver their masterwork.

Track Listing:

1. Tarkus (Keith Emerson & Greg Lake)

2. Jeremy Bender (Keith Emerson & Greg Lake)

3. Bitches Crystal (Keith Emerson & Greg Lake)

4. The Only Way (Hymn) (Keith Emerson & Greg Lake)

5. Infinite Space (Conclusion) (Keith Emerson & Carl Palmer)

6. A Time And A Place (Keith Emerson; Greg Lake & Carl Palmer)

7. Are You Ready Eddy? (Keith Emerson; Greg Lake & Carl Palmer)