THE MASQUERADE OVERTURE

"The Masquerade Overture" is the fifth studio album of Pendragon that was released in 1996. It's in general considered Pendragon's best studio album till then, in terms of production, artwork, booklet and especially due to its lyrics and its superb musicianship. Pendragon, at least at this point in their career, played a style of symphonic neo-prog rock. Great layers of symphonic keyboards, nice melodic guitar solos, and the British accented vocals are the main features that characterize "The Masquerade Overture". Despite the influences, their upbeat attitude gives to them a unique sound.

The line up on the album is the same of their three previous studio albums "Kowtow" of 1988, "The World" of 1991 and "The Window Of Life" of 1993, their second, third and fourth studio albums, respectively. So, the line up is Nick Barrett (vocals and guitars), Clive Nolan (keyboards), Peter Gee (bass) and Fudge Smith (drums). The album had also the participation on backing vocals of Tracy Hitchings, Tina Riley, Anthony Plowman, Gwen Ross and Simon Clew.

"The Masquerade Overture" has seven tracks. All tracks were written by Nick Barrett. The first track is the title track song "The Masquerade Overture". It's a classical open to the album, with great keyboard work and the beautiful voice of a female church singer Gwen Ross. It's a fantastic way to open the album that reminds me very much Mozart. A classical overture is often used by progressive rock bands, especially on their live albums, of which Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman & Howe, Yes and Marillion used Benjamin Britten, Igor Stravinsky and Antonio Rossini, respectively. The second track "As Good As Gold" is a great atmospheric song with nice melodies and good singing. Despite the very Floydian introduction, Genesis' influences are evident. This is a beautiful song perfectly structured that can keep the total attention of the listeners, from the beginning to the end. It's a song with a nice choral work that shows clearly the influences of the classical music on the group. The third track "Paintbox" is another excellent song with a nice musical atmosphere, great melodies and a superb guitar playing by Nick Barrett. It became truly a classic song on the repertoire of the band. It can be the best song on the album. This is a great symphonic song with good guitar and keyboard works. It has one of the most beautiful and sweetest melodies I've ever heard and the chorus is memorable. This is an amazing song that can keep all its freshness, even in these days. The fourth track "The Pursuit Of Excellence" is the shortest song on the album. It's a keyboard based song, nice and pleasant to hear, but that unfortunately it has very little to do with the great music of the rest of the album. Despite be a good song, it represents the lowest point on the album, really. The fifth track "Guardian Of My Soul" is another excellent piece with great guitar playing and a superb drum work by Fudge Smith, with almost thirteen minutes of full enjoyment. This is the epic song on the album that seems to be a great rock symphonic song. All the typical marks of Pendragon's music are really there. Thus, we have powerful music, tempo changes, great melodies, excellent keyboard and guitar works and some nice backing vocals. The sixth track "The Shadow" is a very relaxing song, almost a ballad with some very nice and sensitive lyrics. After almost five minutes, the song turns into a great progressive song with excellent musicianship. It's a song very calm and beautiful, with nice vocals and very beautiful keyboard and guitar works. The classic influence of Genesis' music is perfectly noticed on it. The seventh track "Masters Of Illusion" is the lengthiest track on the album and represents the second epic on it. This is, undoubtedly, one of the highlights on the album with more than twelve minutes of some very exciting music, from the very quiet beginning till the last moment. It combines perfectly well the old progressive style with the more melodic songs of their latest studio albums. With this track Pendragon closes the album in a great style, indeed.

My version of "The Masquerade Overture" has also an eighth track. This is a special bonus track, which is a live version of the song "The Last Man On Earth". The only thing I can say about the track is that we are in presence of an excellent live version of the song that can only help even further to improve the all musical quality level of the all album, really.

Conclusion: "The Masquerade Overture" is undoubtedly one of Pendragon's best works till now. It follows the same steps of their previous two studio albums "The World" and "The Window Of Life", but in a better way. This is a very consistent and cohesive album with some excellent sounding music and production by Karl Groom and Nick Barrett. The only Achilles' heel on the album is "The Pursuit Of Excellence", which is a little beat weaker than the rest of the songs on it. However it isn't enough to affect the overall the high quality of the all album. "The Masquerade Overture" is probably their magnum opus. This is the epitome of the genre, a classic that can rival the likes of "Script For A Jester's Tear" and "The Wake" for sure, only to mention a few. With "The Masquerade Overture", Pendragon reached the rare status to be one of the best neo-prog bands in nowadays. They joined their name to Marillion, IQ, Pallas and Galahad.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

Share this PENDRAGON review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to VianaProghead
• Report this review (#2881879)
• Buy PENDRAGON music online with PA partners
• Show all PENDRAGON MP3/Stream
• Go to PENDRAGON page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to The Masquerade Overture page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for PENDRAGON related discussions