INTRODUCING PENDRAGON

A nice introductory compilation!

It is not a secret that Pendragon is a big name in the Neo-Prog realm, a band who have been creating music for over 30 years and that still has a lot to offer. Fortunately, I will see them at the Ramblin Man Fair next July, which excites me a lot, in spite they have never been a favorite of mine. And though I own some albums and know their music, I wanted to dig this compilation album entitled "Introducing Pendragon", in order to feel again that first-time sensation, I mean, I wanted to re-discover them.

This is a 2-CD album that give us over two hours of great Pendragon music, divided in 14 songs (actually 11, one is a long four-part song) that represent their style and their career. What we find here, is a nice selection of songs taken from eight different albums, running chronologically, starting with "Kowtow" and its selftitled song, and finishing with "Empathy" and "This Green and Pleasant Land" from the "Passion" album.

Maybe this is not what we know as "The Best of", but this really is a great introduction to Pendragon's sound, with long compositions, a pure Neo-Prog style full of keyboards, guitars, nice vocals with some theatrical tunes, progressive tunes. Some other songs are "The Voyager", "Masters of Illusion", "Indigo" and the mighty "The Wishing Well" epic, this last one taken from their "Believe" album.

So it is up to you, I think the aim of this compilation is to get new fans, or maybe regain the lost love of old fans, but at least with me, it succeeded. I think it is a very good album for those who want to discover or re-discover Pendragon.

Enjoy it!

A more interesting than really good compilation. I have always waited Pendragon to release a double CD best of, for they had too many good moments to fill in a single CD (although A Historia serves very well as an introduction, at least up to 1996´s The Masquerade Overture). The problem here seems to be that the band wanted to focus on their latter day works, which are, in a way, not as remarkable as what they had produced until 2001. So a newbie would not get anything from their first album The Jewel, and only one song each from 1988´s Kowtow to Not Of This World (2001). and those are hardly very representative of that period. Very little for almost two decades of being one of the best prog acts to surface in the early 80´s.

On the other hand we have a whole CD dedicated entirely to Pendragon´s last 3 albums up to 2013 which were good, but somewhat less inspired and stylistic quite different from their previous masterpieces. Good stuff always, but still not as good as... you know what I mean. So this is more introductory to their recent works than an overview of the band´s discography and talent. I´m still waiting for a double CD with a good account of their best moments. Or, much more deservedly, a three or four CD boxset with rarities and unreleased material.