SUMMER LP ROUNDUP : ELP UNCHANGED

“EMERSON, LAKE & POWELL.” Emerson, Lake & Powell. Polydor. While other surviving ‘70s progressive rock acts like Yes have basically dropped the classical pretensions from their music, ELP’s comeback album varies little from the kind of orchestral rock that the English trio was performing 10 to 15 years ago.

The only real difference is that ELP now stands for Emerson, Lake and Powell , not Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Cozy Powell drums in a more straightforward power-rock style than the more dexterous Carl Palmer did back in the group’s “Brain Salad Surgery” heyday. But he really doesn’t make a significant difference in the patented ELP sound.

The foundation of the veteran group is still Greg Lake’s mellifluous vocals and Keith Emerson’s swirling, ultra-grand keyboard flourishes. To show its longtime fans that the songs do remain pretty much the same, ELP opens this album with a nine-minute opus called “The Score” and concludes it with a typically self-important rendition of Gustav Holst’s “Mars, the Bringer of War.”

“The Score” even presents a modified version of a key instrumental passage from the band’s “Karn Evil 9” suite, which in the ‘70s was probably ELP’s most admired--or loathed, depending on one’s stand on progressive rock--quasi-classical piece. Surprisingly, “Emerson, Lake and Powell” contains much of the flavor, melody, instrumental prowess and, yes, the pretentiousness that made ELP a sometimes welcome diversion to the standard rock form in the ‘70s.