Trollheart

Title: Ride the Tiger
Artiste: Greg Lake and Geoff Downes
Year 2015
Nationality: British
Genre: Progressive Rock
Familiarity: Two icons, who doesn't know them? I'm more au fait with Downes's work, particularly with Asia and Yes, as I'm not an ELP fan.
1

Expectations: I think now that I look at it, my expectations are a lot lower than originally. I see that it's basically some songs that were later used on Asia or ELP albums, it only has six tracks and none of them are that long, with only two hitting over five minutes, and discounting one “alternate mix”, you get less than a half hour's music for your money's worth, some of which you've already heard. Can you say money talks? Well one of the tracks is even titled that! Oh dear.

1. Money talks: I'm not really bothered about alternate mixes, so I'm going to skip the closer, which leaves me with a mere six tracks to listen to. I know of only one song that I recognise as an Asia song, and I know their discography extremely well, so I have to assume that this, and tracks 3-6, all made it onto ELP albums. Maybe. Sounds like I'm listening to the opening theme to an old TV channel ident at first, then it kicks up into a prog rocker driven, not surprisingly, on keys but with some hard guitar too. Reminds me of a slower Miami Vice. It's okay, a good starter I guess.
2. Love under fire: I always loved this song, even though the opening riff is taken directly from “Johnny and Mary” by Robert Palmer. This version is not different enough for me to Green it, but I will anyway as I love the song, even if John Payne gives it far more heart and emotion than Lake does here. Lovely ballad and Downes's piano and synth make the song, though in fairness they do the same on Aqua. It's a bit slower here, but other than that, pretty much the same song.
3. Affairs of the heart: This does, to be fair, sound very like an Asia song, but I've never seen it on any of their albums. Lovely soft synth that Downes is so practiced at. I must say, I know I'm biased but I feel Lake's voice is very rough here. Is he always like that? Sounds like a tramp or something. Nice fanfare keys from Downes, and yeah okay that was really pretty nice.
4. Street war: Lake may not be a good singer, but here he turns it on and he certainly takes over with his guitar work. Very powerful, sharp, in-your-face rock. I'm not mad about it but it's not bad. For those who know and have an interest in Asia, it sounds a bit like the closing section to “The day before the war”. For those who don't know or have an interest in Asia, I hate you.
5. Check it out: Yeah, this one is terrible. Basic rock, not much thought put into it. Even the title sucks.
6. Blue light: This makes up for it though. Classy. Slowburning and smouldering with some great brass (synth I presume) however it sort of trails off when it should end strongly. Decent song though.

Final result: And that's it. Not, to be fair, as bad as I had thought it would be, but still hardly a reason for any ELP/Asia fan, or fan of the two guys in question to fork out their hard-earned. For rabid completists only. Even if there had been a few more tracks but, really guys? Six? Some EPs have more than that!

Rating:

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