Greg Lake & Geoff Downes ‎– Ride The Tiger (2015)

1 	Money Talks 	
2 	Love Under Fire 	
3 	Affairs Of The Heart 	
4 	Street War 	
5 	Check It Out 	
6 	Blue Light 	
7 	Love Under Fire (Alt Mix)

Greg Lake - Vocals, Guitar, Bass
Geoff Downes – Keyboards
Michael Giles - Drums, Percussion

Ride The Tiger is a collection of six previously unreleased songs by Greg Lake and Geoff Downes. One of the songs was later recorded by Asia and two by ELP; the other four have appeared on previous compilations. This release marks the first time we get to hear the full album as one cohesive piece.

“Money Talks” is basically Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s “Black Moon” with bigger sounding “splashy” drums and horn-like key strikes (different from Emerson’s bleating horn-like keys in the ELP version) mixed with Lake’s overly reverb vocal. “Love Under Fire” is a softly plucked keys ballad, with some 80s sounding synth drums. It simply lies there, even with a creative Downes counter chord instrumental section.

The version of “Affairs Of The Heart” (as opposed to ELP’s version on their 1992 Black Moon album) begins very soft, with bleeding string keys and a slow Lake vocal accompanied by a slow, plodding beat. “Street War” has a cool metallic smacking attack, rather banal lyrics and a good menace of energy to the big tom hits and Downes’ keys modulation and wild flight synth lead. The conga beat and simple riff make “Check It Out” a decent MOR stab, as does the rim shot and Lake’s best vocal.

An alternate version of “Love Under Fire” ends the collection. Surely it’s nice to have Ride The Tiger to complete one’s collection of music from these two monumentally talented men. But I dare say Messrs. Downes and Lake have produced better. ---Ralph Greco, vintagerock.com

“To be honest I thought that these recordings had simply disappeared off the radar until one of my management team, Daniel Earnshaw, reminded me of their existence. My initial reaction was not entirely positive as I generally view many of these re-releases to be a bit tiresome, however, upon hearing these recordings again I immediately identified their value, both in terms of song writing and of musicianship and production. Geoff, of course, is a masterful musician with an instinctive ability to maximise the potential of any song both as a player and as an arranger. His contribution to these recordings is clear for all to see and for me it was a real pleasure to reflect upon our friendship together both personally and as musicians.” - Greg Lake

“One of the privileges of my career has been the opportunity to embrace a number of bespoke projects with some of the world’s greatest musicians. Greg Lake, of course was at the forefront of the progressive revolution, lead vocalist and bassist with both King Crimson and ELP, bands which literally changed the world, pushing boundaries of excellence and creativity, creating a brand new musical genre from London which would soon captivate the planet. This collection of songs represents a particularly creative period in my life. I’m delighted that Greg and I have rekindled our friendship, and worked together again in order to share this collection with you.” – Geoff Downes, progarchives.com

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