THE REST OF PENDRAGON

GOOD TITLE

While Pendragon was not very prolific in terms of releasing original albums, they will output several EP's, compilations and live ones. What you'll get here is actually a collection of their first three EP's "Fly High, Fall Far", "Red Shoes" and "Saved By You".

They are presented anti-clockwise which is good to know to be able to distinguish their evolution (?) during these seven years that seperate them, although most of these songs are a bit uniform, nice but not essential.

"Dark Summer's Day" is a mellow ballad with a great and emotional guitar break at the end. Yes, it reminds me of Carlos Santana and do not yell at me. I am not kidding and I like the man's work (Carlos) very well. There is even a rocking one! "Red Shoes". Nice and gentle. Can you imagine Pendragon trying to boogie ? Listen to this one and figure out ! Another track will be rescued with a great guitar finale "Searching".

The best track featured here (but it was already the case on the original EP "Fly High..." is without doubt "Victims Of Life" : a true Pendragon song, full of emotion and beauty. The most elaborate song of this compilation. The live version for "Fly High" is the one featured on their live album "9:15 Live".

These are my three favourite ones.

Basically, what you'll get here is nothing from the other world. As the title tells us. Just an opportunity for Pendragon die-hard fans to get these three EP's on one CD. Two stars.

I just had a last listen to this compilation and it confirmed what I expected: this is a nice album but no more. It contains songs of three EP's in the late eighties and 1991 with an added live edition of Fly high fall far. So if you already bought the Ep's buying this compilation is useless. I don't have them and have an extra album this way.

This time I don't have a problem with the rating. This is an obvious 3 star case, slightly rounded down. For me the songs on the first EP are the best with an average of some 3,5 stars. The other two are somewhat less but not really bad either.

If you have no problem with Pendragon of the eighties this is a fine album. If you do however and you just like them from 1991 on you'd better avoid this release. 3 stars from me (3,2).

The Rest of Pendragon compiled three Pendragon EPs - Fly High, Fall Far, Red Shoes, and Saved By You - and contains mostly non-album tracks (although the title track from Saved By You featured on all but the earliest versions of Kowtow, and the tracks from Fly High, Fall Far also appeared as bonus tracks on some versions of The Jewel and 9:15 Live).

The album presents the EPs in reverse chronological order, which gives a nice sense of returning to the roots of the band - appropriate, given their rediscovered neo-progressive direction on The World, which came out in the same year. At the same time, the sound is remarkably consistent for the time period covered - yes, the first few tracks are poppier, and the last few tracks are proggier, but all the songs represent the sort of prog-pop fusion which Pendragon emphasised in the 1980s. It's also pretty much the last gasp of that approach before the band would return to a style based firmly in the neo- prog genre. While it isn't strictly speaking an excellent album from the perspective of a prog rock fan, it's more representative of this side of Pendragon than the schizophrenic Kowtow. I'd never recommend it as someone's first Pendragon purchase, but I wouldn't steer people away from it either.

Released in 1991, at the time of their great ´comeback´ album The World, this compilation is really a bunch of songs released only as singles, b sides or EPs put together in one package. While none of the stuff here can be said of being essential to the prog collector, it is still a very nice set of shorter songs that shows how good Nick Barrett & co are at writing catchy songs with great hooks.

Strangely, the track list here is reversed: the last single of the 80´s, Saved By You is the opener, while their first EP they recorded (before their debut album, 1985´s The Jewel) is the last (plus a live version of Fly High, Fall Far as a bonus track). While I was not expecting much, some songs did make a strong impression on me when I heard these tunes: ok, the long, dreamy and very progressive stuff that made them famous is not here, and yet there are pretty strong tunes with nice and unusual guitar and keyboards parts like Elephants Never Grow Old, Chase The Jewel and Lady Luck. The most progressive pieces are from their four-song debut EP, very good. Some surprisingly rocking/popish stuff like Red Shoes and Saved By You are here, as well as a couple of simple, but effective instrumentals (Contact, Excalibur), the latter showing how important was Steve Hackett´s influence in Barret´s playing.

My favorite track is Dark Summer Day, with its slightly jazzy and Bossa Nova rhythms, great harmonies, nice keys and a terrific guitar solo at the end.

All in all not a bad collection of short prog rock stuff. A proof of Pendragon´s versatility, no doubt. It is clear that The Rest Of Pendragon (nice title!!) is not as powerful as any of their ´major´ albums, but it is very pleasant anyway and I loved it from the first time I heard it. Rating: 3.5 stars.