PAWN HEARTS

"Lemmings" is one of my favourite VDGG songs. The instrumentation is at all times clever and subtle, giving a very precise place to the existential lyrics of the song. I feel that in their subsequent album "Godbluff" they have tried to copy quite a lot of the sound of this album. This magnificent song climbs second by second. It's not one to listen to unfocused or doing anything else. VDGG's music has always been very special when it comes to subtlety and here it is more than demonstrated. The flute makes for some divine arrangements and the collaboration with Robert Fripp makes me like this album even more.

"Man-Erg"... Okay, this is really a song to listen to at full volume. The song starts with a piano that seems like it will introduce an Elton John song but then it starts to sound like one of the best works of this sub-genre. I love the part where the organ makes a small appearance to start (as if it were an introduction) the battle of the other instruments (saxophone, guitars and vocals). The lyrics are simply fantastic: a duel between good and evil set in the last instances of life, supported by an incredibly wise and defeatist instrumentation. The almost total loss of consciousness. This song really possesses an admirable degree of maturity.

"A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers" is one of the greatest songs in music history. My favourite song of this band. It starts digestibly, with an interesting riff and a lyric that follows the concept of the album, but little by little it grows in atmosphere and grandeur, showing a "powerful" human being sheltered in an island illuminated by lighthouses in the middle of nowhere and protected by many keepers that little by little are falling (the grace of the song is to imagine what or who is what kills all of them and corners the protagonist to death). The fusion of the keyboards with the guitars, the subtle and correct interpretation of the drums, the creativity to use each part, the end of the song representing a part of the journey that awaits us after we die and other aspects make this song perhaps the best of all VDGG's discography, just as this song makes the album the best of the band.

45 minutes full of musical intelligence and compositions that will surely influence you for the rest of your life if you are destined to be a progressive music enthusiast.

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