Brain Salad Surgery - Emerson, Lake & Palmer

This is a little out of the blue for me. I just really felt like bringing the record player down to the basement and listening to this album. I've wanted to and why not now, especially since I have time to. The album cover is sick. And this is a classic Prog Rock band. I also know that Greg Lake was in the band King Crimson who made on of my favorite albums of all time, which he performed on, In The Court of The Crimson King. So as you can see I have some pretty good standards set for it, so to say.

1. Jerusalem: This sounds like it would be the beginning to a prog rock album. There are biblical themes in this song. In this record version I'm hearing there is a bad quality to it
2. TOCCATA: This has a type of sound that reminds me of Frank Zappa's song Purple Lagoon off Zappa in New York. The parts where the synth are the most prominent instrument. This song seems like something that would be in a 70's version of the Wizard of Oz. That song by Zappa kind of reminded me of The Mario Song. This song reminds me of The Purple Lagoon like crazy. So far on my first listen This is my favorite song and will be hard to top. The synth has a feeling of a siren while the drums add to this feel of like a 70's car chase. This song could be in a soundtrack to an classic movie. I think the part where the synth goes into a like climax and the drums get louder
3. Still... You Turn Me On: This reminds me of a more band oriented version of Skyline Pigeon by Elton John but with and awesome sounding distortion to the guitar fills. It has a very baroque feel to it. This song makes me want to almost cry to it. It is very pretty with a very distorted wah-wah effect to the guitar fills.
4. Benny The Bouncer: This song feels like its a fun song. It seems like its just a fun song. The vocals are sung in a humorous way with a western feel to it. The piano solo sounds like it would be in the western cowboy feel to it. The rag time feel to it makes it very hard to not find it catchy. Also the drum beat adds to it also. When the song is over there is an extra piano bit added.
5. Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Pt. 1: This song seems like it would be in the beginning of a big whole suite in the album. I looked ahead and this is part 1 of Karn Evil 9. I like how they did it on the side one ends with the beginning and side two starts with the continuation to the song. This is a very prog type song with heavy synth to it. This song reminds me of something Genesis would of made off the master piece, in my opinion, Selling England By The Pound. I love the drums on this album. The way Carl plays is awesome. I think that the stat of the album, if you took away all the synths and keys, it would be the drums. Everything adds together for this song to make it work. This song is very much like an extended version of a Genesis solo.
6. Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Pt. 2: The beginning part of this song is an opening friendly vocals. Inviting you to see the show. This is a very promising feel to it. I think this is a great continuation of the last song on side 1. I do like this but my one down side is I kind of want this album to be done. It gets boring. When he starts singing again there is a brief drum fill before that, which I wish it was longer. I like this I just think that the keys take the show. I would ideally like to hear some more guitar and bass and vocals vs. some keyboard driven song
7. Karn Evil 9. 2nd Impression: This has a lot more jazz feel to it. The beginning of this one seems like more of one that might be infesting as an instrumental. I like the feel of the piano and drums. The feeling does get a little old though after about.... 2 minutes into it. The sole piano part at 3:15 ish is awesome and the now noticeable bass that comes in with sounds of wind and dust at 3:20. This part seems like it would be in a scary movie. It is very mood setting to it. That is what I think is a good song. It feels that it begins to slowly build up and when it takes off it is something good. It is a pretty fast cool jazz type solo instrumental improve sounding. I think it's crazy the piano playing on this. My favorite instrument is piano and in this song it is awesome at this part.
8. Karn Evil 9: 3rd Impression: This is the beginning of the next part. This is a very cool way to start off the continuation of the song and the melody. This makes me feel like ''Congratulations, You completed this album. You earn the respect of your peers.''' That would probably been cooler back then in the 1970's but not as much today. I also like the robotic feel that they try to have the vocals do at about 2:40. I very much feel that this song is dragged out. Not to say that the sounds aren't cool. I just feel like I've heard this before and it's nothing new to me.

Over all I'll be happy to give this a 4/10. I would re listen to it but I just have no real interest in doing so. I love the idea behind the set up of Karn Evil 9 but not enough to say that I love this album. As I said earlier my favorite part is Carl Palmer's drumming. This is nothing that is really that shocking to me. I some what at parts reminds me of Zappa's '78 band with Terry Ted Bozzio "That cute little drummer". Who just so happens to be my favorite drummer of all time. The quality of the vocals suck and I want to give this album another listen but I feel like it would be a waste of my time.