Album Review

Marc Loren [allmusic.com]

Manouevres was released in 1983 as the follow-up to Greg Lake's 1981 self-titled debut album. His core group of musicians (Gary Moore, Tristam Margetts, Tommy Eyre, and Ted McKenna) is still present, but Manoeuvres is a different sort of album than the '81 effort. The heavy, gritty, guitar-driven feel of the previous record is not quite as evident and this seems a more restrained album. Many, Greg Lake included, tend to sell this album short and that is a mistake. Perhaps sales were discouraging, but this is a well-crafted, well-performed album on which Lake seems to rely more on melody than he did in 1981. A few of the heavier numbers, such as the title track, are reminiscent of '81, but it is on the ballads that the album goes its own way. Lake shows why, through all of powerful and complex music of the ELP years, it was the ballads which always seemed to fair best commercially. He writes a good song like very few can, and the fact that he delivers every song with such fantastic vocal ability makes this album succeed. Definitely worth a second listen, Manoeuvres is more than it seems on the surface.