THE QUIET ZONE / THE PLEASURE DOME

Very much like World Record I didn't like this one as much at first, but my goodness it is a grower. Part of the appeal is the fantastic recording and of course having Nic Potter's bass, which was one of the highlights of their first Charisma recording. It may not be quite a five star recording but it's worth more than four stars really. In reality there tends only to be two types of people, those who get, and love Hammill and those who don't. Really this is an excellent set of songs, but my favorite is the wave. Maybe Peter says rather than sings a great deal of this set, but it works very well. The violin is a perfect match for Hammill's rather highbrow take on rock music. Such passionate music deserves great performers and that is exactly what we get. This record is of course a product of it's time, gone are the out of this world lyrics, and the bizarre song structures, but in comes a more new wave take on dark rock. Sadly they would only release one more recording, the extreme Vital, another recording that took my a while to fully enjoy. These days I find I play this and world record more often than their earlier records. It seems to me that this is a more mature Van Der Graff, playing some of the best material Peter had written for some time. As for the haters, go and listen to Yes or some such band and leave records like this one for the grown ups.