PURE

I'm going to go ahead and be honest here, and sorry to those who are offended: I have always thought Pendragon were a mediocre band. Not because they aren't incompetent musicians, but because, up until this 2008 release, they simply didn't have anything interesting to show in either the songwriting or compositional departments...in an entire 20 something year career.

Well, for one thing, this album marks the complete reinvention of a band that even up til the mid 2000's simply couldn't shake that generic neo-prog. sound. From the very get-go I could tell from initial listening that this was going to be different from the typical keyboard-driven yawnfests these blokes revel in: Mr. Barrett's guitar, for example, has taken on a noticeably serrated edge. The drumming and bass have also gained a bit more prominence. Hell, 'Indigo' is the first Pendragon song I've been able to sit through completely without laughing, and that in itself warrants a perfect score: this band actually did something that doesn't suck!

The rest of the tracks are quite good too. Nothing is particularly fantastic here beyond the guitar and drumming, but that's still leagues better than my previous assessment of this band.

Honestly, 'Pure' reminds me a lot of Porcupine Tree circa In Absentia/Deadwing, both of which are poster boy albums for the New Prog./Post-Floyd sound that even mainstream audiences find tolerable, and thats a comparison that I can live with as long as you can do some interesting music to back up the approach.

5 stars then for you Pendragon, if for nothing else that unlike dozens of your contemporaries you managed to actually reinvent your band's sound. Oh, and that you sound better than Spock's Beard and Transatlantic. Cheers!