One thing I appreciate more than anything is transparency, so allow me to be transparent with you, the reader: I was dreading listening to this album. My previous rendezvous with Emerson, Lake & Palmer brought me their 1971 studio album Tarkus, which still easily sits as one of the worst albums I've heard from the genre - not bad in the sense that it's technically inept, but because it was such a standard, middle of the road LP that it left nothing of interest outside of a few select tracks. Needless to say, my first exposure to the band left a bad taste in my mouth, and I was likewise proceeding with extreme caution into this release. The saving grace with this one is that it's a live album, and I hear that this group is better live - is that the case? Going off of the two full albums I've heard from this group, I'd say yes. Undoubtedly this group is still up their own ass on this release, but Pictures at an Exhibition is both a far more interesting and competent LP, but it also had some genuinely great moments that managed to hold my attention, which is far more than anything I can say for Tarkus. While I still have little reason to listen to this group, I can confidently call this an improvement.
For the record, this Newcastle City Hall performance is still not quite my brand of prog - it all just feels too masturbatory for it's own good. Even the idea to perform Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is pretty pretentious, let alone the fact that they only used four of 10 parts of his composition - go all in if you're gonna do this, guys! In all seriousness, the biggest props that I can give this album is that it's all expertly arranged. From what I can tell, Keith Emerson did a majority of the arranging, and after this album he sticks out to me as the group's most apparent talent. On this live album, Emerson's highly technical, sometimes unhinged playing style really gets some room to shine as he rises and falls and distorts his instrument to create new and interesting sounds. Emerson here is far more explorative and talented than I ever gave him credit for on Tarkus - in many ways, he carries this album. The original compositions thrown in between the renditions are also high points for the album, although "Blues Variation" was the one that instantly clicked the most, with an honorable mention to the sublime "The Sage," easily Greg Lake's outstanding moment in this performance.
My big problem with this album is still largely the same issue that I had with Tarkus: not a whole lot of it does much for me. The difference here is that when there's good moments we have the gentle reprieve of "The Sage" or the chaotic opening moment of "The Gnome" or the powerful finisher of the piece that is "The Great Gates of Kiev." In between all those, however, is a lot of empty space to me - I don't know what it is about ELP but they just can't hold my attention - at least this sounds a hell of a lot better than Tarkus. There's still some absolute rot here, too, with my pick being the complete throwaway "Nutrocker" - a deplorable rock flip of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker ballet that's in one ear and out the other. Most of the album is just largely not very interesting to me, especially during the "Promenade" sections where the pacing slows to a crawl, relying on whatever follows to immediately get things back on track to quality, be it "The Sage" or the thumping, distorted "Baba Yaga" sections, which showcase each musician's individual talents rather well - particular mention to Carl Palmer's drumming.
Maybe it's just me. Pictures at an Exhibition, if nothing else, proved to me that ELP can in fact make great prog music when they want to - no doubt, there was some solid material on this album. In spite of some great highs, I still find myself getting stultified with this group's work by the 20-minute mark. No doubt that these are all talented musicians in their own right, and moments like "The Curse of Baba Yaga" and "The Great Gates of Kiev" are proof of this, but it feels like for a lot of their songs they overstay their welcome just a bit too long, and it ends up dragging everything down. After this album, though, I'm far more optimistic for hearing more of this group's material - perhaps I judged them too harshly, but only more listening will tell...
RATING: ✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯
Listen to Pictures at an Exhibition.
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