NOT OF THIS WORLD

An often heard complaint about Pendragon (especially Pendragon of the nineties) is that all the successors of The World were more or less the same as The World. First I want to say I always thought that was nonsense because every album was different enough for my liking and second: even if that is the case, why bother ? I think the road Barrett and his men took in early nineties was the right one. I think what he did in the eighties was sometimes nice, but a lot of the songs sounded almost like plain pop music and I didn't like that stile.

I even want to go that far that I think Pendragon improved with each album after The World and to me that culminated in the ultimate highlight in their carreer: Not of this World. This is an absolutely outstanding album. Besides the great compositions, it also sounds really great, so that means superb production as well. I think in this album besides (as ever) Nick Barrett now also Clive Nolan reaches his absolute apogee in his performances with Pendragon. It mainly is evident in " A Man of nomadic traits" to me the very highlight of this album and probably the best Pendragon song ever and that's particularly because of the instrumental passage in the middle of the song where both Barrett and Nolan do an unbelievable job. Really magnificent !! Almost all the other songs are far more than average too, great title track and also the catchy Dance of the seven veils (very nice in live gigs) are good examples.

So hats off for this terrific effort by Pendragon. This album is in my heart and soul. I think my avatar says it all. I can only give this 5 stars.