FALLEN DREAMS AND ANGELS

Pendragon have been around for more than forty years now, coming to the scene a few years after the likes of Marillion and Pallas. Band's leader Nick Barrett has taken care of most of the music all these years, and tied the band together. Starting with music in the line of aforementioned bands, Pendragon has gone through more or less gradual changes in style from album to album, usually with good results. They have almost the same line up ever since 1985, with only some small adjustments, something rather odd in the current music industry. In the early days, they even teamed up with Marillion, as a supporting band in many concerts of Marillion. So, this is a very interesting band with a great career.

'Fallen Dreams And Angels' is a mini album or EP of Pendragon with only four songs and was released in 1994. 'Fallen Dreams And Angels' was released after 'The Window Of Life' Pendragon's live tour. Three of the songs were written during and after their 'The Window Of Life' live tour while the other song was recorded for the second SI compilation disc. Later, all four songs were released on their fourth studio album 'The Window Of Life' as four bonus tracks.

The line up on 'Fallen Dreams And Angels' is the same of their three previous studio albums 'Kowtow', released in 1988, 'The World', released in 1991 and 'The Window Of Life', released in 1993, their second, third and four studio albums, respectively. So, the line up on 'Fallen Dreams And Angels' is Nick Barrett (vocals and guitars), Clive Nolan (keyboards), Peter Gee (bass guitar) and Fudge Smith (drums).

As I mentioned before, 'Fallen Dreams And Angels' has only four tracks. On all tracks the music and lyrics were written by Nick Barrett. The first track 'The Third World In U.K.' is a very rock oriented song, in which the band finds the right balance between the progressive rock and the traditional power rock. It's a track with a real stunning keyboard solo by Clive Nolan, which makes of it truly a great song. This is probably the most elaborated song on this EP with over seven minutes of great music, indeed. It shows clearly and unequivocally the basic musical structure of a Barrett's song. It runs so that first the piano reveals a somewhat ascending chord sequence to encouraging the listener into the mood of the song and on the musical ladder line. This is an excellent true mini epic progressive song, full of rhythmic changes that open the album beautifully. The second track 'Dune' is a great ballad. It's a song written in the Pendragon's best tradition. This is a song with a great and catchy melody full of joy and happiness. On 'Dune', we have an absolute delightfully cute with a keyboard melody that sounds like an accordion, a head of a verse, followed by the chorus, then the same again and again. This is the kind of songs where you can embark in a balloon to fly in the air and you can feel free to travel around the world. So, this a song very enjoyable to listen to and that makes us feel happy and free. The third track 'Sister Bluebird' is a song in the same vein of Genesis' songs, very melodic and with guitars that sound like Steve Hackett. This is a very romantic progressive ballad, with some wonderful guitar performance and nice keyboard work, which soon became as one of the greatest songs on this EP. The song is the smaller brother of 'The Voyager', a song of their third studio album 'The World'. It begins something like that, and that leaves to an almost waiting for the transition to something bigger with new melodic and harmonic changes from the basic musical idea, with several guitar solos and keyboard hymns, where the truly clarity of the music isn't never disturbed. The fourth and last track is the title track of the EP, 'Fallen Dreams And Angels'. This is a song that many of us know from the SI compilation, disc 2. It's a track with great compositional structure, great vocal work and a very nice keyboard sound that makes of this song as one of the highlights in all Pendragon's musical career. This is a fine song, in the romantic vein, which is instantly catchy, pleasant and appealing to any kind of listeners. However, I know that many of you think that we are in presence of a simple and merely commercial and poppish song. I'm sorry, but I must disagree with you. Sincerely, I'm absolutely convinced that we are in presence of a true prog typical Pendragon's song, probably with a small touch of Marillion.

Conclusion: 'Fallen Dreams And Angels' is a very good Pendragon's mini album or EP. Its four songs are more or less equal in their quality level in spite of we may say that they're, somehow, a bit different songs. Clearly, we are dealing here with four leftover songs from 'The Window Of Live' sessions. So, it isn't really surprising that their quality levels are practically at the same level of all other songs of that studio album. Despite this is a mini CD, 'Fallen Dreams And Angels' became as one of my favourite Pendragon's studio albums with 'The World', 'The Window Of Life', 'The Masquerade Overture', 'Not Of This World' and 'Pure'. For some reason, this mini album makes me play it over and over again, with a great pleasure. I don't know why, but maybe the very relaxing compositions and its good lyrics are responsible for that. The fact is that 'Fallen Dreams And Angels' remains as one of my favourite Pendragon's albums.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

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