VITAL

Take away from me that Nirvana so-called desperation, that punk rage, new wave minimalism, garage essentiality. This is real angst, Peter Hammill's furious madness - the screamed 'Ship Of Fools', the hallucinated violin introduction to 'Last Frame', the darkest 'Pioneers Over C' ever heard and the incredible 'Lighthouse Keepers/Sleepwalkers' medley! This was real life, no show - in the years to come Peter will leave the stage at audience's applause, only wanting silence. Progressive music, has been said, choose to abandon the real world - politics, society - to live in a fantasy realm... well, Hammill didn't: he told us about his phantoms, about fear of living, solitude, anguish and isolation ('These days I mainly just talk to plants and dogs / all human contacts are painful, risky and odds' - so he sang on 'Meurglys III'). Live this album, this is no fantasy, no Roger Dean (God bless him), but it's prog!