Carl's Catchy Little Punky Prog-pop One-off Band Ruled
Jason M. Carzon | bowie, maryland United States | 11/25/2003
(4 out of 5 stars)
"After Emerson Lake & Palmer fizzled out the first time by 1980, Emerson went into composing film scores for mostly Italian B-movies, Greg Lake went on to a solo album stint with guitarist Gary Moore, and Carl went on to enjoy success with Asia. But in between ELP and Asia, he had P.M., a poppy band made up of American guys which made Asia's 'Alpha' sound like Brain Salad Surgury. None of the songs exceed 5 minutes, most are 3 minutes. None of this music is going to thrill the Tarkus-and-nothing-else type ELP fan. If you hated 'To The Power Of Three', 'Love Beach' or 'In The Hot Seat', then stay away. However, the thing that separates P.M. from those other commercial attempts is that these songs are fun, catchy as all hell, and played well. Only one or two bits are anything like ELP, and even though it's simpler music, it's nothing like Asia. In fact what you'll hear here is closer to the slick, slight new wavey pop power of The Tubes or Todd Rundgren/Utopia than ELP or Asia. The band looks and sounds very typical of that 1979-81 period right before MTV. Carl's drumming is still stellar, and even when he's playing simpler you can still tell it's him. His style is very identifyable. The songs are so catchy I simply could not hate them. You'll like them right off the bat. Don't look for ELP here, look for Carl Palmer as a member of The Tubes(not as ridiculous as it sounds). Try this album, you may be suprised."
Not the best
D. Sorenson | Racine, WI United States | 09/19/2008
(2 out of 5 stars)
"It's awful 80's dreck. The only thing saving it is that Carl Palmer is on drums - at least there's no drum machine! It won't find my CD player again for a long time."