Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Black Moon (1992)

After calling it a day during the anti-prog sentiments of 1978, and after the awful Love Beach album, this was the band’s first studio album in 14 years to feature the full lineup of Emerson, Lake and Palmer and, having been a fan of their early work – and mildly pleased with their 1986 Emerson, Lake & Powell release – I waited with some anticipation for its release date. I guess it was fair to say that I was disappointed and happy in equal measure upon obtaining a copy!

Gone were the lengthy instrumental pieces and complex drum/keyboard interplay that made their early compositions sometimes breathtaking in their musical dexterity and in had come a heavily Greg Lake-led approach. Now, I’ve got a lot of time for Greg Lake but, whilst an integral part of ELP, for me it was Emerson and Palmer who held centre stage and really defined their ’sound’ but here it is Lake who largely relegates Emerson and Palmer to something of a backing group.

There are some really good tracks here – Paper Moon in particular is a cracking number, even a bit of Hammond sneaked is there for old time’s sake on a strong composition with Lake in rather ballsy form vocally. But for that, there’s Affairs Of The Heart and Footprints In The Snow which are insipid acoustic Lake numbers and even where there are instrumentals, things are not as great as they once were: Burning Bridges for example has a trademark Emerson keyboard approach but ends up in part sounding like a piece from some 80s film soundtrack.

And to make matters worse, there’s Romeo And Juliet – taken from Prokofiev – which I get the distinct impression was added as a result of a conversation to the effect of “we used to always have a classically influenced piece on an album, let’s think of one and put it on” and it is of very little musical merit.

The most disturbing part for me overall, however, is Carl Palmer’s apparent lack of interest throughout. For a drummer of Palmer’s undoubted ability and flair, he plays it straight here – and I emphasise STRAIGHT – being reduced to a metronome of staggeringly uninspiring proportions!

Not an album I’d recommend to be honest – if you wish to dip your toes in the waters of prog rock and/or ELP, go and get Tarkus and hear them in their prime – give a wide birth to their 1990s Prog-AOR pretensions.

• Carl Palmer – Drums
• Keith Emerson – keyboards
• Gregg Lake – Bass/Vocals