SAVED BY YOU

Pendragon will not be a very prolific band in terms of studio album in those years. Still, they deserve all the respect for some of their "mini-albums" (or EP), they will release.

"Saved By You" is a poppish song which can not be considered as one of their greatest songs, I'm afraid. This status will be limited to their work featured on their albums. More progressive and elaborate tracks. This one is just a pleasant commercial song which won't have any influence on further work.

"Lady Luck" is a mellow rock song. We have been used to these type of songs already but this one really belongs to Pendragon's average catalogue. Somewhat commercial but soulless (it will remind me some later Marillion work - post Fish era of course). Uninspired all the way through.

"Chase The Jewel" is probably the only song here that will perpetrate the Pendragon tradition. Nice and emotional vocals with a great guitar break. Do we expect anything else from the band ?

The last song of this EP, "Elephants Never Grow Old" is another very pleasant one. Not dramatically important of course, just nice. And the band will prevent that these songs would be repeated on their standard studio albums (they will still appear on some compilation ones like "Once Upon A Time - Vol. 2)

This EP's will be presented in its entirety in the compilation called "The Rest Of Pendragon". The material proposed here won't belong to their best one. This effort can hardly be considered as essential. It is just a collector item with average songs but I will rate it two stars.

Very interesting EP by this great band in a transitional and turbulent period of their career. The title track was an (unsuccessful) attempt to reach the pop market. Not a bad track at all, it is quite good and catchy, but hardly prog material at all. It is interesting to notice that the 3 remaining tracks are better than Saved By You. Lady Luck follows more or less in the same pop vein, but it is more convincing and strong. Chasing The Jewel is the most progressive of all and it reminds me of the overall sound of their first LP. The last song is very good, but a little too short.

All in all not a bad EP, although you´ll do better if you buy the compililation The Rest Of Pendragon, as it includes all the aforementioned tunes (plus some other good, if obscure, stuff). So I can only recommend this single for the hardcore fans, who wants to have everything the band released in its original form.

Saved By You is a significant Pendragon release because it marks the end of their 1980s era. From the original Fly High Fall Far EP onwards, Pendragon had consistently been gunning for widespread commercial success by offering a balance of poppier tracks and more neoprog-oriented numbers.

Their EPs and singles had tended towards the poppier end of their sound, The Jewel and 9:15 Live dialled the prog side of things up, and Kowtow attempted to find a balance between the two - especially when later issues of Kowtow tacked the title track from this EP on at the start of the running order.

That opening number is one of the most upbeat pop anthems in the Pendragon catalogue - and it was also pretty much their last song in that particular compositional vein. You wouldn't think it to look at the rather humble artwork on the cover here, but this EP doesn't just mark the end of a decade, but it also marks the last gasp of the band's juggling of pop and prog.

Before this EP, the Kowtow album represented their last-ditch attempt to get the interest of a major record label - originating, as it did, as a demo tape for EMI, and then after the label rejected it the band made it the first release on their independent Toff Records label. And after this EP the next release from the band would be The World, which would see them reconfigure their sound, embrace a more prog-oriented approach (albeit targeted at the more melodic and accessible end of prog), and attain substantially greater long-term success as a result of the artistic path that led on from that than they ever did with their pop efforts.

What do we have to listen to here, then, at the tail end of their flirtation with melodic pop-rock? Well, the title track is a simple and endearing enough anthem, Lady Luck is rather forgettable, Chase the Jewel is the most vivid taste of their 1980s prog sound that this EP has to offer, and Elephants Never Grow Old is a pleasantly inoffensive closing number. I wouldn't say that the material here is terrible and if you're fond of early Pendragon, you might enjoy this - especially if you find their attempts at pop endearing rather than cringe-inducing. But at the end of the day, it's a release more notable for the musical transition it heralded than the actual music contained on it.