PASSION

Call it atmospheric rock, modern prog, or even neo-prog, there's no doubts that Pendragon are one of the more established names in the modern progressive rock scene. Much like many of my favourite bands, Pendragon is an act that may have been running for a long time, but their more recent material has been no pushover. Instead of merely trying to appease (or offend) their existing fanbase, Pendragon is a band that keeps the train chugging along, and with their last album 'Pure', they may have received their most positive acclaim to date. 'Passion' is very much a continuation of the momentum that they found with 'Pure' in 2008, and while it may have been a slow year thus far for progressive music, 'Passion' has really struck a chord with me. Although it is a fairly far cry from the music they originally made in the 80's and early 90's, Pendragon's makes the suave decision of modernizing their sound and as the excellent music on this new album indicates, the risk they have been taking with the past few albums has been paying off.

Although 'Passion' is this reviewer's first earnest experience with the music of Pendragon, I was always aware of the influence that they had in the neo-progressive revival during the 1990's, when prog finally started lifting back up off of the ground. As far as 'Passion' goes though, the quickest draw for me was its closeness in sound to Porcupine Tree. While being layered with beautiful atmosphere and some moderate vintage prog sounds that weave their way into the songwriting, there is a melodic pop sensibility to each of the tracks here, even the ones that climb over the ten minute wall. Even vocalist Nick Barrett's British enunciation reminds me often of Steven Wilson, though I would never so far as to say that Pendragon gave up their old sound to emulate another's. The music here is quite dark, but its done with a tongue-in-cheek nature, keeping the powerful emotional resonance in check while still not taking itself too seriously.

As for the lyrics... I have a feeling that Pendragon were either intoxicated, or incredibly angry when they wrote the words to this album. Barrett barks about a range of seemingly random things as slamming ones hands on a table 'like a monkey', or even 'dropping one's balls'. While these may either be surrealism for surrealism's sake, or a charming coming-of-age allusion as illustrated by the latter example may be up for debate for some, but for where I'm coming from listening to the album, it feels as if Pendragon has had plenty of emotions bottled up, and they are letting the so-called 'Passion' out in the most straightforward way they can; a raw display of equal parts anger, sadness, and wonder. Each of the songs keeps a fairly dark tone to it, but it is always melodic, and the band performs this music brilliantly. Of course, there is no room in the music for Pendragon to showcase their abilities, but instead the talent is proven through the subtlety and emotion they are able to put into the music here. With a particular applause going towards the beautifully rendered guitar solos here, 'Passion' is an album played with, well, vigour, let's say?

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