BELIEVE

This is my first listen to Pendragon. I liked the way they looked, their cover art, their themes, and I wanted to discover somone new. I like the sound of the band very much and found some of the songs, namely Believe and So By Sowest, to be extremely good......but.......

First off, I'm from a small town in Kentucky, USA, where they like classic rock and country. So when I discovered Marillion by accident, it was me and them in a bunker so to speak. So I know Marillion, especially Fish era, inside and out. And though I like Nick Barrett, his style and enthusiasm, I must admit, he tries to be Fish and he fails miserably. The band sounds great. Musically I give this four stars. Unfortunately, the album includes lyrics.

Barrett speaks the lines "sometimes I feel like a fish in the sea". He does the "d-d-d-d-d-d-" that Fish uses in Fugazi. It's obvious that Marillion is an influence. But, and it hurts me to say this, as I want to be positive, the lyrics are painful. They sound like someone who is not a "deep" person trying desperately to be deep like his idol Fish. The lyrics are horrendous, which is something prog-heads tend to overlook. But if you're going to have lyrics then their quality should be considered. Gabriel, Jon Anderson, Ian Anderson, Neil Peart, Roger Waters....alll these guys wrote wonderful lyrics. But Pendragon seeks to emulate the best lyricist of them all, Fish, whose lyrics are things of genius. And what I heard on this album was so bad I had to force myself to listen to the whole thing. It was like a machine gun firing an endless stream of awkward, melodramatic cliches. It was not WHAT he said, but HOW he said it that turned me off.

Other than that, I like it.