Tarkus is Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s boldest early statement — a twenty-minute, seven-part suite about a monstrous armadillo-tank, and one of the first side-long epics in progressive rock. Released in 1971, it gave the band their only UK number 1 album, and very nearly wasn’t made at all.

The short version

Tarkus (1971) is the second studio album by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and a landmark of the genre. Its entire first side is taken up by the title suite, a seven-part epic tracing the rampage of a half-armadillo, half-tank creature born from a volcano, immortalised in William Neal’s celebrated gatefold artwork. The second side gathers shorter, lighter songs. Recorded at Advision Studios and produced by Greg Lake, it topped the UK chart and reached number 9 in America.

The album that almost never happened

Fresh from the acclaim of their debut, Emerson, Lake & Palmer were also heavily in debt and under pressure to deliver. When Keith Emerson presented his new, aggressively dissonant material, Greg Lake rejected it outright, telling him to save it for a solo album; Emerson promptly quit. A crisis meeting at their management’s offices the following day cleared the air, and the band regrouped. The suite was largely captured live in the studio, with Carl Palmer’s driving figure in 10/8 opening the piece. Meanwhile the artist William Neal, invited to submit cover ideas, brought along an armadillo doodle he had fitted with tank tracks. Emerson loved it, named the creature, and Neal developed the sleeve into an eleven-panel storyboard.

The sound

Tarkus is harder, darker and more unified than the debut. Keith Emerson’s Hammond organ and Moog dominate, snarling and roaring through unusual time signatures, and this is where he proved once and for all that a rock band needed no electric guitarist. Greg Lake’s voice provides warmth and gravity between the instrumental assaults, his bass lines are heavy and melodic, and Carl Palmer’s drumming is relentless and precise. Where the first album gathered separate showcases, here Emerson and Lake write together, and the long-form suite hangs together as a single, cyclical design. The second side, worked up in a rushed week, is looser and lighter by comparison.

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The songs

The suite moves through seven parts: the ferocious ‘Eruption,’ the contemplative ‘Stones of Years,’ the hurtling ‘Iconoclast,’ the scornful ‘Mass,’ the fierce ‘Manticore,’ the bluesy, mournful ‘Battlefield’ — with a rare Greg Lake guitar solo — and the triumphant ‘Aquatarkus,’ which circles back to the opening theme. Side two is more varied: the honky-tonk comedy of ‘Jeremy Bender,’ the driving ‘Bitches Crystal’ and ‘A Time and a Place,’ the church-organ solemnity of ‘The Only Way (Hymn),’ and the closing rock ’n’ roll spoof ‘Are You Ready Eddy?,’ a tribute to engineer Eddy Offord.

Reception and legacy

Tarkus went straight to number 1 in the UK — the only ELP album to do so — and reached number 9 in the United States, staying on the British chart for seventeen weeks. Its title suite is regarded as one of the first great side-long progressive epics, arriving before the comparable landmarks of Yes and Genesis, and it remained a live centrepiece for the rest of the band’s career. The armadillo became their mascot and stage prop, and lent its mythical adversary’s name to Manticore, the label they founded two years later. Critical opinion has always been split on side two, but the album’s stature rests securely on its first twenty minutes.

The verdict

Tarkus is essential Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and an obvious next step after the debut for anyone exploring the band. The title suite is the reason: ferocious, inventive and strangely moving, it captures three musicians at the height of their powers and progressive rock discovering just how ambitious it could be. The lighter second side divides opinion, and newcomers should judge for themselves. Come for the armadillo and stay for the music — from ‘Eruption’ to ‘Aquatarkus,’ this is one of the defining achievements of the genre.

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