ACOUSTICALLY CHALLENGED

Over the last ten years or so there have been many 'unplugged' albums from hard rock bands, but this has to be one of the first from a prog band. No extra musicians, such as on the Galahad Acoustic Quintet release a few years ago, just the normal guys strutting their stuff acoustically (in fact only three of the band feature, as there is no room for Fudge's drums). With Peter and Nick on acoustic guitars, and Clive on keys, this was recorded for a radio show in Poland, hence the release on the Polish label Metal Mind.

The songs are taken from throughout their career, and works well in conjunction with the DVD (see review elsewhere) as none of the songs are duplicated. In fact, they actually play a non- Pendragon song in "Unspoken Words", which is from Peter's solo album. They start with a dreamy version of "And We'll Go Hunting Deer", which is one of my favourite Pendragon numbers, and played in this manner it gives it a more magical flavour than the original release. This album shows that prog music can be played in a more simple manner and still contain power and complexity (if that isn't too much of a contradiction).

Other songs of note are "Alaska" and "The Voyager", but while I wouldn't necessarily recommend this album to those who have yet to discover the joys of Pendragon, to those of us who have followed the band for years this is a delight. This digipak release contains a good booklet and photos, as well as a multimedia section that contains an interview with Nick and some live snippets, as well as extra information about this release.

Originally appeared in Feedback #68, Jun 02