Album
Emerson Lake & Powell
The Sprocket Sessions
Lemon (label)
21 June 2010 (released)
01 August 2010
So, just as ELP (Emerson Lake & Palmer) play their valedictory set at High Voltage, Lemon come out with this set of rehearsal sessions by Emerson Lake and Powell who took to the boards briefly in 1986. This has been available for a while but only through the ELP website and my immediate question was “Is this a cash-in alone or does it have merit in its own right?” – inevitably the answer is “Yes it is a cash-in” and “Yes, it has its merits too”.
Back in the day I was a huge fan of ELP (the originals) – ‘Tarkus’ was my favourite album for years, I saw them live around 8 or 9 times in the UK, Canada and Switzerland (no I wasn’t a groupie, they were playing and I happened to be there) and ‘Picture At An Exhibition’ was my introduction to classical-based music. Along with King Crimson (Greg Lake’s earlier band) and The Nice (Keith Emerson’s) they formed the core of my listening for a few years. So I consider myself an appropriate person to pass comment on this album.
I have given it a serious listening to and while it differs from the originals I have to say that the addition of Cozy Powell brings a very different ‘edge’ to the sound in that he had a more exciting and less structured approach to drumming and he forced Emerson’s performance to be more explosive to match.
The opening track ‘The Score’ opens like ‘Fanfare ...’ but rapidly goes down another passage entirely with Emerson’s keyboards and Powell’s drums really delivering an exciting and triumphalist theme. ‘The Miracle’ has Lake’s nasal vocals straining over another huge keyboard blast from Emerson but the album really comes alive when they move into ELP territory with a version of ‘Tarkus’ and then ‘Pictures ....’ where they do take this – very – familiar music into more powerful territory. A little of the subtlety is lost with Powell’s rocky drumming but he does bring some real power and sweat. The excerpt from ‘Lucky Man’ is sadly brief and leaves me wondering what the full version would have been like but ‘Mars The Bringer Of War’ is a great example of the mix of classical and rock with Powell’s insistent tympani (?) and Emerson’s clashing keyboards. ‘Pirates’ rounds off the album and once more delivers some great symphonic rock that had me on the edge of my seat.
This isn’t the best thing that E L or P have ever done but it is well worthy of a release even if it weren’t cashing in on the resurgence of the times.
Back in the day I was a huge fan of ELP (the originals) – ‘Tarkus’ was my favourite album for years, I saw them live around 8 or 9 times in the UK, Canada and Switzerland (no I wasn’t a groupie, they were playing and I happened to be there) and ‘Picture At An Exhibition’ was my introduction to classical-based music. Along with King Crimson (Greg Lake’s earlier band) and The Nice (Keith Emerson’s) they formed the core of my listening for a few years. So I consider myself an appropriate person to pass comment on this album.
I have given it a serious listening to and while it differs from the originals I have to say that the addition of Cozy Powell brings a very different ‘edge’ to the sound in that he had a more exciting and less structured approach to drumming and he forced Emerson’s performance to be more explosive to match.
The opening track ‘The Score’ opens like ‘Fanfare ...’ but rapidly goes down another passage entirely with Emerson’s keyboards and Powell’s drums really delivering an exciting and triumphalist theme. ‘The Miracle’ has Lake’s nasal vocals straining over another huge keyboard blast from Emerson but the album really comes alive when they move into ELP territory with a version of ‘Tarkus’ and then ‘Pictures ....’ where they do take this – very – familiar music into more powerful territory. A little of the subtlety is lost with Powell’s rocky drumming but he does bring some real power and sweat. The excerpt from ‘Lucky Man’ is sadly brief and leaves me wondering what the full version would have been like but ‘Mars The Bringer Of War’ is a great example of the mix of classical and rock with Powell’s insistent tympani (?) and Emerson’s clashing keyboards. ‘Pirates’ rounds off the album and once more delivers some great symphonic rock that had me on the edge of my seat.
This isn’t the best thing that E L or P have ever done but it is well worthy of a release even if it weren’t cashing in on the resurgence of the times.
