THE WORLD

"The World" is the third studio album of Pendragon and was released in 1991. After a few years of inactivity Pendragon released this great album which represents a return to the lengthy and more progressive songs. While it's true for prog classicists the neo-prog scene, lead by Marillion, IQ and Pendragon, represents nothing new and creative, but there is a certainty that many of the neo-prog bands have grown to produce respectable, if not excellent music, in their own way.

The line up on the album is the same of their previous second studio album "Kowtow", released in 1988. So, the line up on the album is Nick Barrett (vocals and guitars), Clive Nolan (keyboards), Peter Gee (bass) and Fudge Smith (drums). All lyrics were written by Nick Barrett and curiously, he even recalled all the places where all songs were written.

"The World" has six tracks plus a special bonus track. All songs were written by Nick Barrett except "The Last Waltz" music which was written by Nick Barrett and Peter Gee. The first track "Back In The Spotlight" is a great rock song full of mood and tempo changes, and represents a great energetic opening song on the album. It's a typical neo- prog song very powerful and very solid with catchy and rich harmonies and where we can found beautiful guitar effects and some nice keyboard work. This is, in my opinion, a song that sounds to me very pleasant to hear, that can remind me Simple Minds due to its rhythm section in the background. The second track "The Voyager" is a kind of an epic ballad with great keyboards and beautiful acoustic guitar work that could create a very harmonic and engaging colourful pallet of sounds. On here, Barrett's guitar work is particularly good, with Nolan's keyboards producing some lush textures of sounds, providing a real great harmony all over the song. It's a very good song with steel guitars opening that soon became in what has to be one of Pendragon's best songs ever. The third track "Shane" is a very nice song that sounds very much like Pink Floyd. Of course this isn't a real surprise, because the band never denied that. By the way, for me, of the all classic bands from the 70's, the bands that most influenced Pendragon's music style are undoubtedly Genesis and Pink Floyd. Returning to the song, this is a song with some great guitar parts, perfectly in Gilmour's style, with a very nice melodic line and very well sung. It shows us the other face of Pendragon's music. The fourth track "Prayer" together with the previous track "Shane" represents the prelude to the next track on the album, the great epic track of the album. It's another very nice song, very melancholic, with a good vocal performance and nice instrumentation too. But, this time, its melody is based on the keyboards. This is a song built as a very soft ballad but that soon evolves to a bigger sound, which is a characteristic of the group, indeed. Despite being two good songs, "Shane" and "Prayer" are clearly inferior to the two first songs of the album. The fifth track "Queen Of Hearts" is divided into three musical parts "Queen Of Hearts", "?A Man Could Die Out Here?" and "The Last Waltz". This piece of music represents the real first attempt of Pendragon to make truly an epic progressive track, and they real managed to do that. This is a real pleasure to hear this track, so beautiful and great it is. It's a brilliant song that alternates between gentle musical passages and a very powerful guitar work. There are plenty of great melodic moments scattered throughout this piece, really. This song represents, without any doubt, the great highlight on the album. The sixth track "And We'll Go Hunting Deer" is truly a great relaxing song, a real lovely and gentle piece of music, a very cool moment on the album. It opens with a relaxing atmosphere mood with some very nice piano musical passages and a beautiful guitar driven solo in the end. This is the atmospheric song on the album that represents a gentle and beautiful way to close this magnificent music work, really.

As I said above, my version of "The World" has a last and seventh track "Sister Bluebird", which is the special bonus track on the album. As usual, I don't review bonus tracks. However, I must say that we are in presence of an excellent piece of music that fortunately brings a magnificent addition to the general high quality of the album. So, it's welcome.

Conclusion: For many of us, "The World" represents the real beginning of the excellent musical career of Pendragon, magnificently followed by three other great studio albums in the same style, I mean, "The Window Of Life" released in 1993, "The Masquerade Overture" released in 1996 and "Not Of This World" released in 2001. It helped to define Pendragon's style of music, and perhaps the most important of all, it began really the great partnership between Nick Barrett and Clive Nolan. On "The World" the musicianship through the album is exemplary, the guitar performance is simply great, the keyboard work is delightful, the bass lines are good and the percussion is very tight. This is an album full of catchy melodies with of plenty of tempo and mood changes. The music on "The World" isn't very complex, but it reveals great musical skills by the band. In my humble opinion, it represents truly a hallmark in the progressive music and launched the group into the rare club of the best neo-prog bands such as Marillion, IQ, Arena, Pallas and Galahad.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

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