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Peter Hammill

Eclectic Prog

4.14 | 447 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

amaden

A great album in my opinion, never one to stand still Hammill takes hold of his emotions and shakes them until hes blue in the face, comes across as anger and sadness in equal parts.

The feel of this album is slightly gothic (something I haven't associated with Hammill in much of his solo work), maybe its the photo of him on the cover looking very dashing in his favourite cape.

"Ferret and Featherbird" starts the album in a slightly maudlin note and on the first few listenings seems to go nowhere, but stick with it and the beauty of this track is revealed, a splendid opener (although I can't fathom out the titular ferret or featherbird in the song it must mean something, to Peter).

"No-more the sub-Mariner" is another strong song, must be about the passing of childhood and the dreams and ambitions of childhood that have passed him by never became the here a la Humphrey Bogart or Victor Mature, but we got an outstanding musician instead, so all was not lost.

"Tapeworm" is a superb, quite straightforward (for Hammill) rock song - apart from the acapella break near the end.

"Again" is a gorgeous love song, sensing a broken heart and lost a relationship its another simple song but so effectively done it twists your insides and plucks at your sinews and heart strings.

"Faint Heart and the Sermon" - my personal highlight of this album, starts with an almost medieval melody and gently builds sounds of an early (squelchy?) synth sound, over an achingly beautiful melody, no idea what the songs about, but who cares?

"The Comet, The Course, The Tail" - Hammill's ability to create anger in a seemingly laid back acoustic song is again put to the fore here "...they say we are endowed with free will, at least it justifies our need for indecision" creates a mood for the whole song, a very strong song quite underrated in Hammill's canon I think.

"Gog/Magog" - A quite frightening couplet at times, a theme of devil worship, pervades the "gog" section the organ playing is excellent and provides a real gothic horror atmosphere to the song. The "Magog" section is mostly a sound effect-athon the vocals are all treated (at least I hope so otherwise, Peter will have been doing some damage to himself (both high pitched and low moaning) maybe you need to be in the right mood to appreciate this song as at times it can be quite annoying, but listening with headphones really adds the depth to the atmosphere.

| 4/5 | 2006-3-15

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