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The chief feature of the album is the "Tarkus" suite, originally forming the whole of Side one of the album.
Greg Lake stated in an early interview that he viewed Tarkus as a representation of the military-industrial complex, and that his lyrics were about that, and about the futility of war and strife. 
On the album cover, commissioned to the graphic designer and painter William Neal, and made after the music was created and recorded, Tarkus is depicted as a half armadillo/half tank creature, born from an egg erupted from a volcano.
The inner gatefold sleeve features a sequence of pictures depicting battles between Tarkus and other half-mechanical creatures, until its eventual defeat by a manticore - the only creature in the tale that is wholly organic. "Tarkus" is then shown as a defeated shell in "Aquatarkus". The band later named its own record company Manticore Records.
The lyrics of the "Tarkus" suite relate only very abstractly to the story as delineated in the images: "Mass" is musings on organised religion (as is "The Only Way"), while "Battlefield" is a general statement about war and what war causes (such as: "You talk of freedom? Starving children fall...").
Keith Emerson later said in his autobiography that he presented most of the piece fully formed to the rest of the band and as such Greg Lake was initially not pleased about the band's new direction.
The track "Battlefield" features one of the rare electric guitar solos from Greg Lake. Some live versions also featured an excerpt from a King Crimson-song, "Epitaph", originally co-authored and sung by Lake on Crimson's first album.

The final track, "Are You Ready Eddy?", was written for the band's recording engineer, Advision Studios' Eddie Offord. The song, whose music is an arrangement of Bobby Troup's "The Girl Can't Help It", ends with Carl Palmer exclaiming "They've only got 'am or cheese!", a reference to what were apparently the only sandwiches on offer in the Advision canteen.

Poster: Franke Carlino

Tracklisting:
"Tarkus" – 20:35 
-"Eruption" (Emerson) – 2:43 
-"Stones of Years" (Emerson, Lake) – 3:44 
-"Iconoclast" (Emerson) – 1:15 
-"Mass" (Emerson, Lake) – 3:11 
-"Manticore" (Emerson) – 1:52 
-"Battlefield" (Lake) – 3:51 
-"Aquatarkus" (Emerson) – 3:59 
"Jeremy Bender" (Emerson, Lake) – 1:46 
"Bitches Crystal" (Emerson, Lake) – 3:55 
"The Only Way (Hymn)" (Emerson, Lake) – 3:49 
"Infinite Space (Conclusion)" (Emerson, Palmer) – 3:18 
"A Time and a Place" (Emerson, Lake, Palmer) – 2:57 
"Are You Ready Eddy?" (Emerson, Lake, Palmer) – 2:10 

Personnel
Keith Emerson - organ, synthesizer, piano, celeste, keyboard, Hammond organ, Moog synthesizer 
Greg Lake - acoustic guitar, bass guitar, electric guitar, vocals 
Carl Palmer - drums, percussion 

Production
Producer: Greg Lake 
Engineer: Eddie Offord 
Mastering: Zal Schreiber 
Arranger: Emerson, Lake & Palmer 
Director: Emerson, Lake & Palmer 
Paintings: William Neal