PAWN HEARTS

James Lee has it absolutely correct here. The pieces are well executed, but there is no musical virtuosity. The songs are interesting at first, but essentially amateurish. The opening to Man-erg is especially sloppy, though it really does pick up in the middle. But besides that, and bits of the Lighthouse suite, this record offers me little.

The one thing that I have never been able to get over of VDGG is the sophomoric simplicity at the heart of their chord progressions and melodies, buried under layers of complicated and convoluted structures and atmospherics. This album sounds cool at first, especially for those who have had no contact with VDDG before, but H to He is much better musically. And if you go into this recording with preconceived notions of it as something monumental, you will be bitterly disappointed. Pawn Hearts is lightyears behind Close to the Edge