PAWN HEARTS

Okay, for those of you who've heard of or even listned to the highly-acclaimed likes of Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, or Rush may or may not have heard of Van Der Graaf Generator, and if you have, you'd undoubtedly undertand that this obscure while phenomenal band belongs in the upper echelon of Progressive Rock. They have it all: Beautiful melodies, a rough edge, fantastic vocals, psychadlic interludes - you name it. Pawn Hearts - in particular - stands out among their works as their best overall, while at the same time as one of the best and most artistic works in Progressive music, period.

The first track, Lemmings (Including Cog) opens the album in one of the harshest and most in-your-face fashions that you could imagine - it starts out with a nice acoustic melody, and as soon as Peter Hammill's lyrics come in, the music explodes into a moving frenzy driven by David Jackson's fantastic sax work and Hugh Banton's rough-edged, powerful organ work - honestly, without his organs, the full effect of this song would be dull. I've never really heard anything comparing to his style of playing before...he's not just in the background, he is the melody. This track has you on your feet from beginning to interlude to end.

The second track, Man-Erg, has more direction than the album opener; less improvisation. There's more of a defined melody rather than pure artistry (which was more apparent on Lemmings). This one opens with Peter Hammill's vocals and piano, creating one of the most ironic moments that I have ever heard in music (imagine a beautiful piano melody with lyrics describing a killer schizophrenic and you'll see what I mean). This continues for a good three minutes before - once again - exploding into a highly organ and guitar driven piece, with Peter Hammill's guitar and screeching vocals adding to the effect of it all, thus making this bit one of the darkest and hard- edged moments on the album, maybe even in VDGG's entire catalogue. Afterwards, the song slows back down to more of a mid-tempo, as it was towards the beginning. A couple of minutes later, it once again explodes into a frenzy of music, but with more beauty than previously. You'd really have to listen to it to understand.

The third and final track, A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers, is what I would expect to disenchant many mainstream listeners, mainly due to it's extraordinary length, clocking in at over 23 minutes. However, in this case, VDGG saved the best for last, as this one of the most flawless pieces of music that I have ever heard. The song opens with a jazzy introduction dominated by keyboards and Hammill's dark, metaphoric lyrics. A couple of minutes in, the song picks up some power before cutting out in simply one of the coolest fashions which an organ can do, thus leading to the next segment of the suite. Suddenly, out of the quiet interlude comes a series of sax chords that literally make your hair stand on end...I shit you not about this one. This leads to a series of organ chords which set the initial melody back into place. I'm not going to list every single detail...you'll just have to find out for yourself. The true beauty of the entire album doesn't come until the end, in the form of one of the most majestic endings to an album that I have ever heard...absolutely flawless.

Overall, this album is excellent if you can look beyond Hammill's theatrical style of singing. I personally love his style, but I could imagine that not everyone would think likewise.

5/5

-UltimaP.