Emerson playing the venue's pipe organ. "Lachesis" is a short piano piece that features baroque and jazz influences, ending in grand, sweeping arpeggios. "Atropos" sees Emerson play a piano vamp in 7/8 with percussion accompaniment from Palmer. An improvisational section is played on top, which transforms into a polymetrically played repeated sequence in 4/4 time. The resonance of the final chords is curtailed by the sound of explosions. Palmer's solo spot "Tank" was composed with Emerson. The first section features Emerson on clavinet and piano, Lake on bass and Palmer on drums. The middle section is a drum solo. The final section features Emerson on clavinet and Moog synthesizer. "Lucky Man" is a song written by Lake on the acoustic guitar when he was 12. It features an improvised Moog synthesizer solo by Emerson at the end, liberally using portamento. A 5.1 surround sound mix of the song was released on a 2000 reissue of Brain Salad Surgery. Artwork The album's cover is a painting by British artist Nic Dartnell. Although it has been said to be originally intended for the American group Spirit, and that the bald-headed man on the left of the cover is Spirit's drummer, Ed Cassidy, the artist denied this in an interview with Mike Goldstein of RockPoP: Critical reception Reviewing in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau said: "This opens with 'The Barbarian,' a keyboard showpiece (not to slight all the flailing and booming underneath) replete with the shifts of tempo, time, key, and dynamics beloved of these bozos. Does the title mean they see themselves as rock and roll Huns sacking nineteenth-century 'classical' tradition? Or do they think they're like Verdi portraying Ethiopians in Aida? From such confusions flow music as clunky as these heavy-handed semi-improvisations and would-be tone poems. Not to mention word poems." Paul Stump's 1997 History of Progressive Rock commented of the album, "Still hailed by many as the band's best effort, it established the blueprint for a musical style which, for all the bullish puffing of the band's 'progressive' credentials, they would develop hardly at all." However, he found significant shortcomings with all of the individual songs, excepting only "Atropos", which he called the album's best track. Track listing 2012 reissue In May 2012, Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree remixed the album for a three-disc reissue containing the original mix, the Wilson remix, and a