WORLD RECORD

After the brilliant Still Life, this album is less than remarkable. The whole band seem much less inspired. When She Comes is a decent Hard Rock opener and becomes quite heavy around the 6 1/2 minute mark (my favorite moment on the entire record). Overall the song feels too straight-forward though... there's hardly anything progressive to speak of here.

A Place to Survive is another heavy rocker but slightly more interesting than the first track. Still, to me it sounds like a song that would have been cut from Godbluff... it becomes monotonous on repeated listens.

Masks is the best track on the first side. The m-m-masochistic m-m-mumble is great... Hammill's vocals and lyrics are as excellent on this track as anything from their earlier masterpieces.

For some reason Peter Hammill decided VDGG needed some big rock guitars in their sound and he plays heavy fuzzy riffs all over the record... decent idea, the only problem is that he's not that great of a guitarist. He nearly ruins 'Masks' with less-than-stellar riffing, and then totally destroys the next song.....

Meurgly's III starts off great. Up until 13 minutes into the song this is classic VDGG and by far the best track on the album. But then it transitions into an abysmal 7 minute reggae jam which features some of the most god-awful lead guitar playing ever committed to tape! It's amazing that the record producer ever allowed this portion of the song to make it to vinyl. Surely this is a cruel joke done as tongue-in-cheek satire of some sort?! It's a real shame too, because the main body of the song (first 13 minutes) could rank among their all-time best compositions.

Wondering redeems the second side of 'World Record' and saves the album from ending on a bad note and is itself a great song.

However, I can't in good conscience recommend this album to anyone other than people who have already explored and enjoy VDGG's earlier works. Try 'Pawn Hearts', 'Godbluff', and 'Still Life' instead... in that order. 2 stars.