For all of the gushing I do about my love for Italian spook-prog legends Goblin and their classic soundtrack work for the late 70's/early 80's films of Dario Argento, one of my all-time favorite Argento scores is actually Keith Emerson's score for the second entry in Argento's "Three Mothers trilogy", 1980's Inferno. It was his first film from this era not to use Goblin for the soundtrack, as Argento wanted the music to have more of a classically-influenced feel to go along with his baroque visuals, and he enlisted Emerson, fresh out of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, to create the heavily keyboard-based score.

�� Inferno remains one of Argento's most cryptic films, and also one of his most visually ambitious: set inside of a towering, cathedral-like apartment building in New York City, the story careens around the misadventures of two siblings as they attempt to uncover the mysteries of the building and it's secretive inhabitants, their journey leading them to a hidden, nightmare world of witchcraft, alchemy, architectural insanity, and brutal murder. An at times impenetrable film, Inferno bears some of Argento's most striking imagery of his career, and while the tone is decidedly different from the spooky feel that Goblin brought to their soundtracks, Emerson proved to be a perfect match for this particular film, melding his magnificent classical-influenced keyboard arrangements with terrifying levels of almost heavy metal style bombast and detours into operatic prog that knocked my fuckin' socks off the first time I saw the film.

�� Most of Emerson's score is based around his eerie, dissonant piano arrangements, which range from the dark, grandiose majesty of the main theme for Inferno that features several key musical motifs that reappear throughout the score, to the brooding orchestral sounds of "Rose's Descent Into The Cellar", which blends his piano together with muted brass, wildly trilling woodwinds, and ghostly strings to create the tense, dreamlike atmosphere for one of Argento's most striking set-pieces. Other pieces feature jazzy riffs on Verdi's Nabucco, jazz-flecked prog raveups with searing fuzz guitar and Emerson's minimalist elliptical piano clusters, hymn-like arrangements for pipe organ, sinister Hermannesque strings, wailing female operatic singing, and the wild piano arrangement that endlessly spirals throughout "Kazanian's Tarantella" before the strangely triumphant orchestral climax. Other standouts range from the gorgeous baroque synth melodies and processed keyboard tones of "Elisa's Story", the weird jazzy flourishes that appear amid the bloodcurdling symphonics of "A Cat Attic Attack", the clanking orchestral menace of "Inferno Finale", and the dizzying keyboard work on "Cigarettes, Ices, Etc.". An air of gothic dread hangs over all of this, punctuated with jarring percussion and sudden jolts of rhythmic propulsion. But it's the epic "Mater Tenebrarum" that is hands down my favorite piece here, and probably my favorite Emerson track ever. A bombastic prog number that appears towards the end of the film, it fuses a driving, relentless beat, gothic organs and fearsome operatic chorales screaming over the slightly off-kilter motorik groove, sounding for all the world like some super sinister Magma on steroids, and man, when those demonic trumpets kick in, it turns into something akin to a terrifying prog rock version of Jerry Goldsmith's score for The Omen, the sound huge and epic and rousing, and it's over far too soon.

�� This new AMS reissue of Emerson's Inferno comes in gorgeous gatefold packaging that reproduces the original sleeve design, and includes a fold-out insert with extensive liner notes.