PAWN HEARTS

I am listening to this album in the moment of writing this rewiev. Not beacause I need to hear it to write about it. It's the other way around, hearing it made me wanna write about it.

Some albums gets me hooked at first listen, but soon lose their appeal to me. Some albums take a little longer to get into, but are well worth it. I can listen to those albums over and over again,for a long time. Then I finally grow bored of them. Very few albums does something outside that. Those few that does has another quality: they make me come back to them, over and over again. I can shelve them for a while, then I feel the need to listen to them again. Pawn Hearts by VdGG is one of these few albums (Still Life is another one).

This album id difficult to get into, even by VdGG standards, and for the newcomer to the band I would certainly recommend Godbluff as the best place to start. For me Pawn Hearts had to grow on me, for quite some time. First it went from unlistenable to listenable, then it became good, then great, and now it has finally reached the point of being essential.

Now after I've gotten all of that praise out of my system, I'll try to talk a bit more about the music. The album contains only three tracks, "Lemmings (including Cog)", "Man-Erg", and "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers".

"Lemmings": This track clocks in on a bit over 11 minutes. It features three sections, the first and last following the same theme. These are split up by the middle part, Cog. The first and last section is based around a saxophone riff. And what a riff! Always makes me wanna get up and jump around. :) Cog is a bit chaotic sounding, with PH really sounding menacing. From the chaos then erupts the saxophone riff again, and this is the best moment of the song IMO.

"Man-Erg": A favourite track of many VdGG fans, but my least favourite track on this album. Still great! It has a lot of variation to offer, with lot's of changes in mood, which VdGG are masters of. A bit over 10 minutes long.

"A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers": Talking about mood changes, this 23 minute long epic has it all. First it puzzled me, there are a lot of sections that at first seem pointless (either just noisy, or plain boring: there are about 3 minutes right at the start with just noises that could be heard around a lighthouse). All of these serve to set the mood though, and works as a whole. Although this epic is really a bunch of shorter tracks patched together, and it has a lot of wierd moments, as a whole, it works. And it not only works, it is one of the best and most gripping epics I ever heard! The ending is truly majestic, and also features some nice guitarwork, courtesy of Mr. Fripp.

This album is truly a 5/5. A final piece of advise though: give it time! :)

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