Trilogy

 

    My first requested album! Not specifically for this blog, just a recommendation from a friend, but why not make a review for it anyway, y'know? Emerson, Lake, And Palmer were a prog rock band, and being a big fan of another prog rock band (ELO) myself, I thought I might be slightly familiar with their music. Not even a little bit. The first track opens with light, intermittent drums developing into a barrage of synthesizers, and it only gets stranger from there. A good portion of the music on this album is instrumental, with large portions of songs having no vocals and a few songs that are purely instrumentally melodic. A lot of the sound here is similar to something you might hear in a waiting room, in the background of a video, or while on hold; what makes it different from those is how energized a lot of it, being fast and exciting as opposed to slower, while still managing to retain that semi-chill feeling that the former examples had. It's also a lot more abstract than, say, ELO because of the major use of synthesizers and the changes in tone between songs, and even in songs, like in the title track Trilogy, which has multiple very distinct sections. Because of that change that happens quite a few times throughout the album, it makes it a little difficult to be able to latch onto a single sound, because as soon as you have, a new one comes into to take the spotlight. Along with that, the music can sound fairly disorganized and random at times; once again in the opening track's intro, the drums and synths don't seem to follow any pattern for a while until the song develops more. I think this could just be an artistic thing, but it was a bit off putting for me. In general, although I like the vibe of Trilogy and definitely think that it's good, it just doesn't resonate with me that much. 

    Highlights: The Endless Enigma (parts 1&2), The Sheriff, Trilogy, Living Sin

Rating: 4/6