Emerson, Lake & Palmer picked a bad time to release 1992's Black Moon, the trio's reunion (or comeback or whatever) album. Arriving just as grunge was sweeping America with the tail of its dingy flannel shirt, Black Moon was the antithesis of Nevermind. With its mix of bombast ("Paper Blood," "Better Days") and mellowness ("Affairs of the Heart," "Footprints in the Snow"), the album sounds as if the three members of ELP weren't quite sure of their place in the musical landscape of the early Nineties. They seemed most comfortable echoing Asia from a decade earlier, as "Farewell to Arms" and "Burning Bridges" attest, and vocalist/bassist Greg Lake could even pass for John Wetton.
Elsewhere, ELP tries to recapture past glories with its take on Prokofiev's "Romeo & Juliet" and the dense "Changing States," an instrumental penned by keyboard player Keith Emerson. (Emerson also penned the bonus track available on this 2008 reissue, the piano interlude "A Blade of Grass.")
Heard today, Black Moon doesn't really rank among ELP's weaker albums. Unlike its predecessor, 1978's Love Beach – the album that broke up the trio for more than a decade – this thing has a charming innocence to it, the sense that ELP was trying to be relevant again but didn't quite know how. Unfortunately, there was just no room for the band to regain its footing against the likes of Pearl Jam and Nirvana.
Track Listing:
1) Black Moon
2) Paper Blood
3) Affairs of the Heart
4) Romeo & Juliet
5) Farewell to Arms
6) Changing States
7) Burning Bridges
8) Close to Home
9) Better Days
10) Footprints in the Snow
11) A Blade of Grass (Bonus Track)
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