Of the trio's first 4 studio albums, this is definitely the one I can stand the least. It's all based on the 20 minutes of the title track, which are only good in parts, for example when Lake sings, which are probably the sections where Lake had a hand in composing the music together with Emerson (the lyrics are all by Mr. Lake) or in the section entirely written by Lake ("Battlefield"). You can see that if they had called themselves Lake, Lake, and more Lake, I would have liked them more? Obviously, within those 20 minutes, even the Sboronissimo comes up with cool stuff, but mostly it's just overly fine virtuosity for its own sake. The short little songs that follow the suite, well... Except for "The Only Way," the rest is, well... Bye.
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