Search - Emerson Lake & Palmer :: In the Hot Seat

Good ELP - just needs editing

Stuart M. Paine | Arlington, VA USA | 11/10/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"In THE HOT SEAT is much too long at 61 minutes, being an album-length collection of new (in 1994) recordings to which was added the 15 minute "bonus" of re-recorded "Pictures at an Exhibition".



As album issues go, this is the easiest one to fix. I just cut the (three) weakest tracks and resequence the songs as if the disc were an LP, separating Lake's single, "Daddy", from the true ELP numbers in the process. (Lake toured that year featuring this song in a solo acousic set.)



This is what I get:



SIDE ONE

Hand of Truth

Thin Line

One by One

Street War

The Man in the Long Black Coat (great Dylan cover!)

Gone Too Soon



SIDE TWO

Daddy

Pictures at an Exhibition



These are all strong tracks. All of them. Yeah, "One by One" is more of that Lake stuff about cities, neon, shadows, dreams, fate, talons, daggers, moons, thunder and floods, but what is one to do? The MUSIC is exceptional. Now at 48:15 and rearranged a bit, this is a GOOD album - addition by subtraction!



Aside from editorial tinkering though:



In THE HOT SEAT's "Pictures" are significantly improved over the 1970 performance, the principle charm of which is that it was a live debut. For this recording, Emerson has essentially recomposed the first "Promenade" (although the insert credit is simply Mussorgsky). In 1970 he was just reading the score. The new version of "The Gnome" is much less aggressive and is more mature than 1970's, the early approach being almost frantic and closer to King Crimson. I also really like the way bits of Mussorgsky's "The Old Castle" now run through Lake's original contribution "The Sage". It reminds me of their previous use of Prokofiev's "Lieutenant Kije" in "I Believe in Father Christmas". (Check out Sting's "Russians", too.) I had always wished that these guys would correct the uneven 1970 rendition of "Pictures" and hack out its hurried filler in the process. That's precisely what they've done here.



Not their greatest, but VERY enjoyable!"

4 1/6 good ELP songs, the rest very forgettable....

Grigory's Girl | NYC | 01/26/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This is probably Emerson, Lake, and Palmer's final studio album (they broke up rather acrimoniously in 1997), and it's a shame, as it's very uneven and not a particularly good album. It's not completely awful, though. There are some great tracks, like Hand of Truth, a great cover of Dylan's Man in the Long Black Coat, and the incredibly intense Street War. The new version of Pictures at an Exhibition (a studio version and shorter than the mammoth live version) has its moments, especially on Lake's solo part The Sage. I like this version even better than the original. Lake's voice, which is not as good as it used to be, is actually very good here.



The rest of the material is very forgettable, and the album overall is incoherent. It's a comedown from the great Black Moon album, just released 2 years before. Seeing that this will probably be their last studio album (no reunion plans are in the works), it's a shame. If you're a ELP completist, you should pick it up because the songs I mentioned are really great ELP songs. But the rest of it is junk."

Big progressive pop-rock

JORGE VALENCIA-CUELLAR | Bogota, CO, SA | 07/04/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"ELP has always been one of my faves, especially for their experimentation with sounds,synths, keyboards great drumming, bass and guitars riffs, instrumental interplays, lyrics and vocals. In particular I enjoy "Pictures at an Exhibition" very much, as well as "Tarkus", "Trilogy" and the superb "Brain Salad Surgery". 1999 "In the Hot Seat" seems a bit far from a classical ELP approach to music, and hence it's not properly a progressive rock album and it's more pop oriented than the rest of the bands studio recordings (except for 1978 "Love Beach", of course), but it still keeps the avant-grad sound which is a trade-mark of this great band, in particular their version of "Pictures at an Exhibition" and their redition to Dylan's "Man in the Long Black Coat". Anyway the other tracks are pretty good too. It's a must have for any one who wants the complete studio works of ELP."