Brain Salad Surgery Prog is the group at the pinnacle of its powers,” says drummer of Emerson Lake & Palmer’s fifth album. “It’s very well recorded and it was definitely one of our most creative periods. If I had to choose one of our albums, that would be the one.
” It’s a viewpoint echoed by his erstwhile bandmates. Keyboard player Keith Emerson sees it as a “step forward from the past,” which “represented the camaraderie of the band at the time”. Bass player and vocalist Greg Lake reckons it was “the last original, unique ELP album”.
It was released in late 1973, by which time the group were, in Lake’s words, “already huge.” One of the first so-called supergroups formed from members of , and Atomic Rooster. Although all three musicians had endured periods of schlepping up and down motorways in transit vans, the newly formed trio’s first gig was at the Plymouth Guildhall, followed by a second at the 1970 Isle Of Wight Festival.
From then on, superficially at least, it all seemed so easy. “It looked to some like we were the sons of famous fathers and didn’t have to work to get there,” quips Lake. Their fourth album, 1972’s , had reached Number Two in the UK and Number Five the USA; but in rehearsing and arranging the music for , ELP made a decision to pursue a quite different approach.
“Music technology was really expanding,” Lake explains. “Tape recorders were going from 8-track to 24-track. We took advantage of the new possibilit.