Customer Reviews

Atomic Rooster

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I only bought this album because Carl Palmer is on it. It's the only album he did with the band before Greg Lake convinced him to join ELP (he being the P). I give it four stars out of five, not because it's a fantastic album that appeals to everybody, but it works for what it is. They are known as the prototype heavy/death metal band, but it's nothing like Type O Negative or anything you would associate with that term nowadays. I don't usually listen to "heavy metal," but this album is one of the better ones to come out of the post-Beatles psychedelic era. After the disbanding of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, (remember the song Fire? "I am the God of hellfire, and I bring you...") AR was formed by that group's organist, the late Vincent Crane, who might have escaped from the loony bin, and drummer Carl Palmer, who was only 19 at the time. What adjective can I use to describe him? Anybody who thinks the drummer is not important should hear this album. He gives it that extra bit of musical savvy required to save the otherwise long-winded jams, although his drum solo on one of the songs sounds like his solo from "Tank" on the first ELP album. The cd I have even has an extra track which obviously does not have Carl on it, and you can hear the difference. Being a HUGE fan of ELP, I didn't expect to hear anything that had the polish of that band. ELP surpassed all of the 'progressive' bands that laid the groundwork before them. It would be interesting to see what would have happened, or not happened, if most of these bands had stayed together. Crane has the chops and the manic energy of Keith Emerson, and the album does have some great riffs, but most of the songs follow the riff-verse-chorus-jam format, and lack the sophistication required to make the arrangements more interesting. The worst thing about the group is Nick Graham's singing, but there's not too much of it. Vincent and Carl are the stars of this show. You don't have to be a musician or a drummer to appreciate this album, but if you are and you wore out your ELP collection trying to memorize Carl Palmer's riffs, you might want to check this out.

....There is nothing bad about this album. NOTHING!! If you like early 70's heavy psych rock and the such, get this!! This smokes anything emerson lake and palmer EVER did. Amazing! This is where Palmer shows what he is TRULY capable of.