Forum Home Forum Home > Progressive Music Lounges > Prog Blogs
  New Posts New Posts RSS Feed - My Top 32 Albums - Countdown and Detailed Reviews!
  FAQ FAQ  Forum Search   Events   Register Register  Login Login

My Top 32 Albums - Countdown and Detailed Reviews!

 Post Reply Post Reply
Author
Message
banjosoap View Drop Down
Forum Groupie
Forum Groupie


Joined: April 07 2007
Location: Australia
Status: Offline
Points: 102
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (4) Thanks(4)   Quote banjosoap Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: My Top 32 Albums - Countdown and Detailed Reviews!
    Posted: January 31 2022 at 20:59
Hi everyone. I've been embarking on a highly detailed and passionate (to its detriment haha) project over the last year where I've not just tried to establish what I think are my all time favourite albums (personal preference but highly influenced by existing conventions within prog/overall rock circles), but really listen closely and dig into them and tell the stories of them. It's been education to a few of my fellow younger friends who aren't really familiar with older music, but though its not all Prog albums, as a classic-Prog dominant person myself in my listening habits, there'll be many albums featured throughout that are sacred favourites to many here too.

Officially it's a Top 52 Countdown. That's a strange number but it was to ostensibly be able to post once a week over a single year, though I've got behind on that (but I don't care, its an excuse because I couldn't decide between the last few for a top 50 anyway LOL). To not overly spam this place I won't flood here with a backlog, but the rest, as well as other mini-reviews on close runners-up that didn't make the 52, can be found at the blog itself, here:

https://hossalbumreviews.wordpress.com/

So far these are the albums I've covered in detail:
I'll continue from here, in one thread to keep it all in one place and not make it spam and because that's similar to some of the other great work collected in huge epic threads that I've seen from other contributors in this particular part of the forums.

I'm up to No.32 which is a convenient round fun number we could do bracket competitions or something with afterwards! So I'll post that here, and 31 is not far away!

Hopefully the deep dive sparks people's own passions. I'd love to know other people's lists or opinions on the sometimes controversial (but also sometimes boringly conventional) hierarchy I've established, and I'd love to hear people's own detailed reflections on why they also love some of these albums.


    Edited by banjosoap - January 31 2022 at 21:03
    Back to Top
    banjosoap View Drop Down
    Forum Groupie
    Forum Groupie


    Joined: April 07 2007
    Location: Australia
    Status: Offline
    Points: 102
    Post Options Post Options   Thanks (2) Thanks(2)   Quote banjosoap Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 31 2022 at 21:05

    32 - Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here (1975)

    https://hossalbumreviews.wordpress.com/2021/12/17/pink-floyd-wish-you-were-here-1975/
    SIDE A

    1. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V) – 13:32
    2. Welcome To The Machine – 7:28

    SIDE B

    3. Have A Cigar – 5:08
    4. Wish You Were Here – 5:35
    5. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts VI-IX) – 12:28

    When you really think about it, this might be Pink Floyd’s greatest of many triumphs, and one of the most special artistic achievements of all time. It is obviously a well established and adored classic, but what is most impressive are that it came out of the most unlikely and impossible circumstances. For any creative type ever, being able to even keep any kind of handle on one’s own life and sanity after an earth-shattering breakout success invariably proves impossible, let alone to somehow make a worthy follow-up. Ultimately, the boys in Pink Floyd didn’t fundamentally keep said sanity after the behemoth 1973 masterpiece The Dark Side of the Moon. They were the worse for it, but this album is the better for it. To go from maybe the biggest album of all time in many ways, to twiddling thumbs in complete stalled ignominy a year later, to then churning out a wonder like Wish You Were Here the following year, is an astonishing journey. To many hardcore Floyd fans, Prog devotees, this is often thought of as the best of all Pink Floyd (or any?) albums. Gilmour and Wright themselves quote it as their best work. It perfectly combines the longer term mastery of long-form composition and arrangement they’d always displayed, with the crisp commercial professionalism of Dark Side’s recording quality, plus some newly explored and exposed darkness.

    It may seem unnecessary to meander back through the whole Pink Floyd story once again. It has been covered before, here and elsewhere, and will be again, and this album is their ninth, a seeming whole world removed in sound and time from the early days. But the journey and context of formative years of the group are essential to fully appreciating and understanding Wish You Were Here in both musical and thematic terms. The earliest years of the Pink Floyd story are led and dominated by the mythological figure that is Syd Barrett, with all his psychedelic genius, as guitarist, writer and performer, and overall charismatic counter-cultural icon status. The madness into which he descended was both a tragic waste of but also the perverse making of such legend. Reflections on and the figurative ghost of Barrett constantly haunt and influence their work, but never like it did in this instance. Sonically and philosophically, the subsequent Floyd ethos was rooted in an experimental spirit, the pushing of technological or structural boundaries, and a sound characterised by its deep, spacey textures and patience.

    The preceding masterpiece represented a peak of the Floyd sound and ethos rather than a fundamental change. But nevertheless, much of both the construction process and the final sound of Wish You Were Here gives the perception of having reached a summit, not just in success terms, but in the capacity and willingness the band had to wring maximum commerciality and slickness out of the sound, then turned around and descended back into a more purely textural approach. This is a slower, more brooding, more patient and definitely overall denser album than its predecessor, without the kind of profound immediacy of sound and universality of theme that Dark Side brought. But it is also another step cleaner, more direct and focused. The crisp production and dynamic balance between powerful full sounding rock ‘n’ roll and tender accessible melodies are stronger than ever, but the band allow all the melodies and themes to linger and breathe. The result, against all the odds, is that most-rare thing, a follow-up to a career-defining masterpiece which succeeds on a number of fronts. It is both a completely different sounding and paced album but still in its own way very accessible. It is both another new and unique step into the new and unknown, yet also a deeply reflective album that brings back so much of the past.

    -

    The 1967 to 1973 period, from Syd right through all manner of experiments to the triumph of Dark Side, saw eight albums within a six year period. As much as or more than most of their contemporaries, Pink Floyd always had a productivity about them. But it took a whole two years for the next album to emerge, after a difficult and turgid 1974. It was an unprecedented period of unproductivity following the big album. It really is rather inevitable. That deadly combination of overbearing schedule, overwhelming pressures and the sense that you’ve just done the best thing you could ever do are all a perfect storm for writer’s block. The personal turmoil attached tends to spiral further down the rabbit hole aswell invariably, which further still inhibits inspiration. The environment of such a time is the least suited for enthusiastic creative spontaneity and yet it is in those environments where the expectations, led by self, are highest. Because somehow you need to do something that’s not identical to what you just did, any self-respected artist is too proud for that (and besides, what you just did by that point is something you’re completely over and resentful of). But you’ve established a new standard. So somehow, in the worst of conditions, you’re also wanting to come up with something totally new and outside your natural mode of operation. But this should still somehow be as good as or better than something considered near-perfect by so many? It’s impossible.

    This context rather helps to explain how the biggest band in the world at the time could have ended up so meandering through quaint directionless projects. Most famously, with inspiration low, the big idea which took hold throughout the initial sessions for this album was the Household Objects project. Getting back to some of their experimental roots, and some of the late 60s/early 70s avant-garde spirit that Floyd had dealt within, with mixed results, the idea was to make an album containing no traditional musical instruments. All sounds were to have been created by the various striking or some other kind of engagement with regular everyday items that would be found in the home. Whether the guys thought this project had any serious potential is unclear. Probably not and that was perhaps in the moment, the point. It’s hard to judge if the overwhelming blur of the time rendered them of unsound mind, or just resentful enough of the industry and the circus at the time inspired them to be as deliberately contrarian as possible. Certainly there were some merits to the concept, if harnessed at a smaller scale in some kind of moderation. There are bits and pieces of demos from this phase which have seen the light of day and they’re good fun. But at some point relative sanity prevailed.

    -

    With the invariable mental health battles at play, the madness of the time lent itself to some kind of recontextualised and perhaps more relatable reflection on the travails that had befallen old Syd. Roger Waters in particular had already fixated so much on Syd specifically, and themes of madness, lunacy and depression generally through previous content. The circumstances of his life and mental state at the time meshed with this and he found himself inclined towards reflections on and tributes for Syd. As far as main lyrical and thematic inspiration goes, this became the driving force of the album’s central opus, and the whole atmosphere of the recording overall.

    Then came the golden musical moment. It can sometimes take something so small to finally get everything moving. There is no limit to how brief and achingly simple a special moment can be that becomes a catalyst for so much. On this occasion, it was those four oh so sweet notes. They’re an iconic Pink Floyd moment, B flat, F, G, E. Syd’s theme as they call it. IT is remarkable how four simple single guitar notes can so define a whole mood and leave such an indelible mark. Gilmour’s soulfulness of style and sound just leaves those four notes lilting achingly, floating in the air. The chronology may not quite be this simple, as much of the depressed apathy that characterised the making of Wish You Were Here came in early 1975 as the band made abortive attempts to get anything going in their recording sessions at Abbey Road. In reality, the core structure of Shine On, as well as two other long-form pieces in Raving and Drooling and You Gotta Be Crazy, had been put together and performed live in 1974. But unquestionably, it was Shine On which was the focal point for everything, and as the one primary idea that seemed to offer something potentially fruitful musically and conceptually, it became the starting point from which eventual productivity flowed at the Abbey Road sessions.

    As tends to be the deal with successful follow-ups, the misery that success breeds is so often the poisoned chalice that invariably inspires new success. Between Pink Floyd’s penchant for slow-burn extended workouts, and the eminently refillable reservoir of two main grim themes, a whole lot of nothing quickly became well over an album of material. Each song featured one or both of the two main inspirations, either some sort of musing on Syd specifically and/or madness generally, and/or sardonic snapshots of the music industry Waters in particular was clearly so bitter about. Raving and Drooling and You Gotta Be Crazy were both politically tinged acerbic takedowns of various elements of society, both through well-thought out title metaphors characterising the people in question as crazy. With not quite enough for a double album and a preference for a single LP effort, these two paired tracks were saved to become Sheep and Dogs on Animals. Instead, the band included a shorter, more direct and more sonically diverse trio of songs which would both balance better with the central tome already in place, and provide more variety. Welcome To The Machine is a unique studio experiment but forms an overall discomforting sound palette that perfectly conveys feelings of anger, madness and disquiet, while presenting a representation, both literal in the lyrics and thematically in the chilling music, of the music industry ‘machine’. Have A Cigar is an even more transparent satire of industry absurdity, while Wish You Were Here is a straight up mournful elegy for Syd. Put together, these tracks formed a natural thematic continuity, abstractly tracing the Syd Barrett journey through industry pressures and building insanity, but without dipping into over-wrought conceptual excesses.

    Once again, maybe even better and more directly than before, Pink Floyd are exploring simple but deep universal themes in a consistent and relatable manner. But there is such an elegaic pace to things, to the point where the album’s initial critical reception was decidedly lukewarm. I can see why to an extent. After the remarkable emotional and musical heights of Dark Side, this new effort could seem almost sleepy. It never exactly soars with any of the kind of grandiosity endemic both in popular critically loved Prog-leaning album music of the early 70s, and much of recent Floyd to a lesser extent. But nothing was ever going to satisfy critics after what had just come before. Furthermore, that patient pacing not only authentically reflects the mood of things around the band, but also lets things breathe and adds textural warmth. This allows an album recorded both in and about dark and harrowing times to still wash over the listener in an unexpectedly and satisfyingly relaxing way, which is why it is still so widely adored.

    -

    Shine On You Crazy Diamond is a mighty bulky behemoth. Gilmour’s iconic four-note theme was the jumping off point from which the band jammed their way to a series of core melodies and overall structure. As the piece grew and grew and took on a life of its own, it became clear it was going beyond even the confines of one side of vinyl. The great structural turning point which made the whole flow of the album fall into place and really work, was the decision to split Shine On in half, into a pair of tracks around the thirteen minute mark bookending the album. Parts 1-5 come first, with the final track of the album consisting of Parts 6-9.

    Shine On You Crazy Diamond 1-5 is a slow building, melancholy but direct and melodic masterpiece. Part 1 is a typically Pink Floyd intro, with a quiet start and three minutes of long deep ambience. The uniquely gorgeous sound of Wright’s pad chords come from a combo of differeny keyboards overlayed, plus a rare holdover from the household objects project, with the sound of wine glasses being played at different pitches also layered on to deepen and create an ethereal buzz to the chords. A slow, deliberate, patient high-pitched bluesy guitar solo introduces Gilmour for the first time in what may be his best guitar opus. Everythiong then fades before the chills happen, as that moment, those four notes, launch Part 2. After four hypnotic repetitions of the figure, in come the whole band and Part 2 consists of the first full instrumental jam and another more dexterous solo.

    The pause at the end of Part 2 seems like it will give way to the famous vocal intro, especially as if sometimes did live, but as before Gilmour’s recent solo, it is a false dawn that this time gives way to a Wright-dominated sequence, with a lovely melodic solo on the minimoog. Another brief Gilmour solo wraps up the song’s shortest part, before we finally get to the verses and grand, emotional, soulful choruses of Part 4. Part 5 is similar to Part 2, with more Gilmour soloing on the main theme, but also including a lovely wistful guitar arpeggio and the first warbling effort from regular guest Dick Parry on the saxophone.

    A long distant saxophone and keyboard fade-out gives way seamlessly to the distant churning opening industrial noises of Welcome To The Machine. It is remarkable piece, totally divorced from time. A structurally simple but sonically frantic smorgasbord of proto-industrial electronic churning and whirring, it can be entirely disquieting in the wrong kind of mood. It is a Wright extraordinaire and so melodically impenetrable that I think I still underrate it. This methodically constructed piece represents the peak of Floyd’s mid 70s embracing of the studio as an instrument, with all manner of tape effects and processing layered on top of each other. Based on a single, sinister bass drone on the VCS3 Synthesizer that was so prominent in this Floyd era, from there it marches desolately through different time signatures and all manner of effects and noises, all grounded in reality by the organic yet still somehow soulless and robotic sounding precision acoustic guitar work of Gilmour. Gilmour’s vocal is pained, patient and processed, with Wright filling the space with huge booming, oscillating synth tones and solos.

    Side B begins with the crisp opening riff of Have A Cigar. It is the album’s straight-laced fun rock song, and probably the least appreciated because of it, on what it a mightily consistent album. One reason this track perhaps never quite captures the adoration other tonally similar Floyd rock tracks too is because of the distance from the usual recognisable sound created by the unexpected guest vocal. The prolific and influential folk singer Roy Harper was drafted in to lay down a sassy sarcasm-drenched vocal when Waters felt he wasn’t quite nailing the performance and Gilmour neither suited nor, allegedly, was willing to sing lyrics he didn’t believe in. These lyrics, similar to its spiritual predecessor as sardonic, cynical, driving rock jam, Money, are a biting parody of the hacks and suits Waters considered rife and wrong with the music industry. Harper’s effort lays on the satire and cynicism, in a way that Waters later regretted, but he does a great job. It is a darkly comic song, funny but with a desperation to it. But most to its credit is just how straight up it rocks. Gilmour is rooted in a heavy kind of funk chugging, while the main riff which essentially serves as a kind of instrumental chorus provides a consistent wonderful, spidery, grandiose climax.

    -

    The transition between Have A Cigar and the title track is one of the more brilliantly creative and executed of all time. Gilmour’s fabulous repeating chorus riff serves as a long coda which appears ready to fade-out, but instead a dramatic effect comes in and ‘sweeps’ the music away, leaving it distant and distorted. It turns out to be the sound of the track being heard through the radio, as the dials suddenly change and whir before landing, so satisfyingly and recognisably to any casual Pink Floyd fan, on those first beautiful acoustic chords of Wish You Were Here. Gilmour’s overlapping lead line then cuts in at full volume and clarity over the grainy radio backing, before the whole track returns gorgeously upfront in time for the aching vocal. This great album’s iconic title track might just be the most common favourite Pink Floyd song of those kinds of casual but engaged classic rock listeners who only know a handful from the discography. It is everyone’s mother’s favourite Pink Floyd song. I never adore it to the extent its reputation and admitted quality suggests I should but again, it is pretty impossible to pick a ‘weak point’ on this even-handed album. Just like the album as a whole, its aptly representative title track kind of lacks delirious heights, but also doesn’t have a weak moment anywhere. Ultimately, relative to their capabilities, this track is a straight-forward acoustic ballad. But it is certainly an achingly gorgeous one that everyone knows to sing along with together.

    Shine On Crazy Diamond 6-9 is a a bunch of satisfying recurrences of the main themes and more diverse explorations away from base. Part 6 segues naturally from the title track to the sounds of wind blowing, slowly overtaken by a slow, low, ominous staccato bass tone that looked forward to some of the sounds on Animals. Eventually the whole band break in, at a slow, drawn-out tempo, over which Wright solos remarkably on yet another unique and futuristic synth, confirming this album’s underrated status as one of the great and most diverse explorations of analogue and early digital synth technology of all time. Part 7 suddenly takes over and is a straight-up brief recapitulation of Part 4, with one final verse and chorus to conclude the song’s lyrics. For most Pink Floyd and attached solo tours over the years, this natural, poignant final verse tends to wrap up proceedings live. It is a lovely end point, but it means the forgotten final pair of parts don’t always get their due credit.

    Part 8 is some of the most vibrant and atypical fun Floyd as ever occurred. It is the closest they would ever get to being ‘funky’ with Wright once again dominating a rocking jam with some spirited moog solos, anchored around a sexy funky Hohner clavinet base. The album’s typical temp and energy is raised, with Gilmour and Water’s paired and lilting lead guitars adding to the funk feel. A slow keyboard note overtakes all the sounds and fades the part away, into the melancholy finale. Part 9 is essentially a funeral mark, with Mason’s rhythm more glacial still than ever, and Wright laying down a final sad tribute to Gilmour with a series of warbling sad keyboard lines. It’s a reminder of the tragic circumstances behind the track’s inspiration, poignantly re-emphasised by Wright’s closing quote from the Barrett hit See Emily Play in the fadeout.

    The final moments of the album are representative of the whole record, with Pink Floyd masterfully combining their contemporary angst and growing polished production values with their traditional slow-burn mood music, technological innovation and an exploration of times and figures past.




    Edited by banjosoap - January 31 2022 at 21:09
    Back to Top
    Lewian View Drop Down
    Prog Reviewer
    Prog Reviewer
    Avatar

    Joined: August 09 2015
    Location: Italy
    Status: Online
    Points: 13957
    Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Lewian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 01 2022 at 02:48
    Edited: Argh, wrong thread! Ouch


    Edited by Lewian - February 01 2022 at 10:05
    Back to Top
    AFlowerKingCrimson View Drop Down
    Forum Senior Member
    Forum Senior Member
    Avatar

    Joined: October 02 2016
    Location: Philly burbs
    Status: Offline
    Points: 16040
    Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote AFlowerKingCrimson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 01 2022 at 08:38
    Originally posted by Lewian Lewian wrote:

    I'd rather see him respect that there's no Jethro Tull without Ian.


    Fixed it for you. Wink
    Back to Top
    Progmind View Drop Down
    Forum Senior Member
    Forum Senior Member
    Avatar

    Joined: June 29 2010
    Location: Argentina
    Status: Offline
    Points: 3443
    Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Progmind Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 01 2022 at 08:51
    Great review banjosoap!!! and i really enjoyed your review about R.E.M - "Murmur"
    Back to Top
    banjosoap View Drop Down
    Forum Groupie
    Forum Groupie


    Joined: April 07 2007
    Location: Australia
    Status: Offline
    Points: 102
    Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote banjosoap Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 09 2022 at 08:33
    Wow, SOMEONE actually appreciates it! Haha, thanks a lot. I even got an anonymous thanks for my two posts from someone too which is crazy!

    Well my next one is ready. It took longer than I wanted because of a busy January then the Olympics, and it is going to be my last in this crazy 3000 range, before I try and use the roundness of the Top 30 to slightly clean them up and make them more publicly palatable.

    I must say though, compared to Wish You Were Here which felt a bit of a slog, I'm really proud of this new write-up. You'll have to be really bored or really obsessed with the album to want to read it because its very long, but I really feel I capture its greatness well and you can see my passion for it.


    Edited by banjosoap - February 09 2022 at 08:50
    Back to Top
    banjosoap View Drop Down
    Forum Groupie
    Forum Groupie


    Joined: April 07 2007
    Location: Australia
    Status: Offline
    Points: 102
    Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote banjosoap Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 09 2022 at 08:42
    31. Genesis - Nursery Cryme (1971)

    https://hossalbumreviews.wordpress.com/2022/02/10/genesis-nursery-cryme-1971/

    SIDE A

    1. The Musical Box – 10:25
    2. For Absent Friends – 1:48
    3. The Return Of The Giant Hogweed – 8:09

    SIDE B

    4. Seven Stones – 5:08
    5. Harold The Barrel – 3:01
    6. Harlequin – 2:56
    7. The Fountain Of Salmacis –
    8:02

    As I’ve referenced previously on this blog, there is sometimes a convention in Prog circles that the mainstream of the supposed ‘genre’ are what are known as a ‘Big 6’ of Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes, King Crimson, ELP and Jethro Tull. I’m not entirely sure where this idea came from. They’re obviously all legends but virtually nowhere can I find any real acknowledged partitioning of just them that doesn’t include some other worthy candidates alongside or in place of. It often tends to include Rush. Or sometimes you could say obscure (but not really hugely moreso than say, King Crimson?) artists like Van Der Graaf Generator and Gentle Giant, or cross into the mainstream work of acts like The Moody Blues and Supertramp. But this is how my formative study and understandings as a teenager leaned and (not coincidentally, it’s impossible to say whether the chicken or the egg came first and influenced the other more here), they’re the six I do genuinely love the most. You can probably increasingly tell this in where my posts keep leaning.

    As far as this classic Prog dominance in my reverence goes, Pink Floyd and Yes just recently became the first artists to be represented here twice. Before that came the first effort to make it from ELP. In earlier months I covered some of the work of King Crimson and Jethro Tull. So what does the lack of Genesis so far mean? Until now perhaps it could be wondered if I appreciated them a bit less? Maybe they were going to be a beloved sacred Prog band I commit the sacrilegious act of not quite adoring as much as I probably should and therefore not including them in my Top 52 (spoiler alert: see Rush). Instead we now have the likely opposite implication, that they are so wonderful that all their masterpieces of consequence are here and to come.

    Nothing beats the colours of Genesis music. The beauty and the power, and all the one of a kind creativity and unmatched dynamism between it all, mark them out as a singular special act. This applies to most of their career. It is important to immediately note that though it does not reach the true heights of the early Gabriel-Hackett era, all the 1978 through 1991 Genesis remains high quality and worthwhile. But for now we’re going way back to the still clearly tender roots of 1971.

    Nursery Cryme is the second in a sequence of five iconic sacred Gabriel-era Genesis albums and, more importantly, the first Genesis effort featuring the classic five-piece lineup. The core founders of the band, singer (and bits and piecest) Peter Gabriel, keyboardist Tony Banks, bassist and regular guitar player Mike Rutherford and lead guitarist Anthony Phillips were pupils together at Charterhouse, one of the nine grand old English boarding public schools. It’s a background as prim and proper, as nauseatingly Queen’s English as possible. This comes out in their music, with an educated, intelligent, distinctly middle class Englishness, increasingly laced with more progressive teenage influences in the vibrant culture of the late 60s. By 1967, via a pair of initially disparate school rock bands, the four of them and drummer Chris Stewart coalesced into the beginnings of Genesis. Their initial breakthrough is well chronicled and left-field, as they sought out and were taken on board by Old Carthusian Jonathan King, the iconoclastic entrepreneur, producer and general man of questionable repute behind all manner of quaint bubblegum pop hits in Britain through the 60s and 70s. King returned to his old school seeking musical talent, and by 1969 the result was a series of singles and a total outlier (and super excellent) album of pleasant pop ditties recorded by the boys as teenagers at the behest of (and unduly plastered on with non-consentual strings by) their benefactor. But the boys were already moving on. Genesis had greater ambitions, as songwriters more than performers, but their ideas were nevertheless burgeoning far beyond the scope of King’s preferences. They rid themselves of his necessary but misguiding influence, switched drummers a couple of times, and managed the far more ambitious, progressive, heavy, expansive but heavily folk-dominated effort, Trespass (link). But there was still more to come, in scope and, with the reality of being a gigging band not merely a songwriting collective taking over, performance. But such a touring reality wasn’t comfortable or suitable to the introverted Phillips. Meanwhile the rigours were beyond the adjudged standard of Mayhew. So the original trio were joined by Steve Hackett and Phil Collins. Another foray back into the studio produced yet another logical and inevitable forward. But more notably, it was the first album which really transcended Genesis into a special status as Prog legends in retrospect, but also earned them their first sustained success at the time, albeit largely confined to Italy.

    Nursery Cryme is a textbook transitional album. It represents an interesting hybrid at an evolving part of the early Genesis journey. With Hackett and Collins on board, they now have together the tight, disciplined, dexterous core unit, with its undervalued virtuosity, which would define peak Genesis. But you can definitely still tell they haven’t quite reached their full potential yet. Like its predecessor, and far beyond any subsequent efforts, this album remains very much in the folky realm at times, dominated by harmonising 12-string work from Hackett, Rutherford and at times Banks. That’s the influence of their initially most prolific songwriter Phillips still at play. There is still a silliness to proceedings, a child-like energy and joy. All these preppy private school boys (with the notable, and noticed, new exception of Collins), Gabriel in particular, do have certain pretensions and a certain solemn intensity, but they’re still 20 and 21 year old kids making this album. The subject matter is very upper class and English, but it is also hilarious and dumb, from horny vengeful ghosts, to murderous plants and other black humour. There are still some growing pains. Gabriel’s angelic young voice, which is he trying to evolve into a more powerful, dynamic instrument, cracks and strains at times. Some of the shorter filler tracks don’t really go anywhere. The really rich, deep, full sound that would come on the next few albums, dominated by the mellotron, grand piano and liberal bass pedal usage from Rutherford, still takes a back seat to the acoustic guitars and Hammond organ.

    A lot of this innocent, slightly simpler floweriness is to the album’s credit though. It is as beautifully melodic as they or anyone would ever be at times. The dynamic range is extraordinary, with so much soft, sweet material but huge, powerful intrusions and payoffs on every highlight track. Somewhat like all Genesis albums, it is not consistent all the way through. It has some filler, but multiple utterly immense peaks, both in their sudden contrasting energy and in their excellence. The structure of the album, how these feature pieces are spaced apart and naturally broken up with moments of rest and contrast make it flow perfectly.

    When it comes to dynamic range, there is no greater masterpiece than The Musical Box, be it in the work of Genesis, or anywhere in the wider Progressive Rock oeuvre. The Musical Box is quite simply, one of the all-timers. It stands on the top plane with any of the other lengthy and mighty Prog tomes. It is wild, bizarre, creepy, kind of stupid and (that old underrated Prog element again) fun, but it is wrought, emotionally, powerful and obscenely beautiful. It shifts gorgeous and seamlessly between passages of such driving, galloping energy, and sequences or aching delicacy.

    The opening few minutes, and the bulk of the first half and beyond of the song, is a tender and typically early Genesis acoustic 12-string number, possibly their prettiest. The band then embark on a quintessential Gabriel narrative jaunt, with a story that is hugely British, perversely sexual, macabre, and totally stupid. In Victorian England, young girl Cynthia accidentally decapitates her friend from some kind of particularly egregious and aggressive croquet mish*t. Later on, she opens an old musical box that belongs to Henry, unleashing his spirit…except now he’s a horny old man creepling on Cynthia. Makes sense. But though he would become rather more refined, Gabriel was always a rather evil master of subtly creeping darkness and disquiet throughout his career, and this is probably the first deep dive into that part of the world he makes. So it has a certain historic gravitas to it when you awash in the full context of the piece. The hair-raising, mystical darkness of the tense 12-string music does rather befit the over-riding discomfort of the story, as does the sheer emotion and power of the frustration laden outbursts which manifest in the hard rock sections, most notably at the very end. 

    The dynamic contrast being better than ever, with a fury that remains consistent with the theme and tone, comes from the instrumental breaks being lent a far greater punch than Genesis had before by the disciplined virtuosity of both Hackett and Collins. The new drummer and his understated rhythm buddy Rutherford gallop constantly, while Hackett trades solos with Banks throughout. The first of these sections is a brief and fairly simple jam a few minutes in, where Banks fills the sound with simple sounding, but characteristically busy and huge hammond chord, while Hackett takes centre stage.

    The second quiet sequence breaks down into an almost total stop, with near unbearable tension as the Old King Cole and tick tocking clocks tease us along and further delay and amplify the gratification of the mightiness to come. Then there is more galloping gallivanting behind dualling Hackett and Banks sequences, before they meet together to double-track a fabulous spidery riff to end the section and set up Gabriel’s big and harrassing finish. The finale is launched then anchored by the monstrosity that is Banks style massive organ-chordage, and punctuated emphatically by the precise but punchy Collins. It is an exemplary, grand, textbook Prog final. Gabriel/Henry’s beleaguered cries of ‘now!’ and ‘now!’ again and again somehow seem to grow more distant despite their desperation, as the band surges forward and eventually bears down into the most gorgeous warbling final Hackett solo, and grand classically inspired staccato 1-2 ending.

    For such a total afterthought piece of filler, For Absent Friends is actually marvelous. Often such filler tracks fulfill their role in every negative stereotypical way by lacking any kind of energy, melody, or interest. In this case, the little 90 second respite from the surrounding epics is sleepy but so very tenderly melodic. It is a simple folksy guitar piece written by Hackett, with lyrics and vocals by Collins. It is his first of both such efforts and you can tell, for the 19 year old’s sentiments and voice are so child-like, but in a way that is endearingly adorable.

    But then we get right back into full on absurd melodrama with The Return of the Giant Hogweed. The story is another layer more ridiculous, tracking the violent takeover of the world by sentient and vengeful Hogweed plants, angry that they’ve been removed from their homeland in Russia and placed in London’s famous Royal Botanic Gardens in kew. The music depicting this is suitably yet overwrought, with gnarly, crunchy riffs aplenty. Liberal dollops of massive organ are piled on in parts, but the piece is very much a Hackett showcase, from the heavy, spidery main riff to his historic solo.

    Most of the song is a rollicking fun rockout. It alternates between the main riff and energetic verses where Gabriel brings out the punky growl he occasionally loves to fire into, and some subtly brilliant slower passages which bubble cleverly back to a climax. At full pelt, the song is as heavy as Genesis would ever get, driven by ferocious triplet-heavy drum work from a tireless Collins. But the real quality comes when everything slows down into the quieter more melodic verses, under which the rhythm section builds from understated colour to emphatic punches that punctuate a tense climax. The vocals and organ also surge until everything has snuck back up on you at full burst, before satisfyingly breaking back into the initial power verse.

    Second time around, after the build and climax, comes a lovely Hackett solo over a brief instrumental jam section, before a sudden change of pace. Banks brings a baroque-influenced huge piano break which serves as the anchor point for the song’s late bridge, where Hackett embarks on an iconic and bizarre staccato solo. This sequence from Hacett is often credited as the first solo to dominantly employ the tapping technique made famous later by Eddie Van Halen and other metal guitarists.

    From there comes the final warning of vengeance and murder, before the murderous triumph of the Hogweed is represented by the total Collins-driven cacophony of the mad finale, which was somehow even huger live.

    In an album mostly revered for its holy trinity (two have been covered, with one still to come at the end), Seven Stones is the true underdog triumph. The first Banks solo composition on the album, it is therefore suitably more piano driven, verging on the balladesque. It is very simple, patient and pretty, with uncharacteristic conventionality and a kind of gospel choral feel to it. That does the basic trick for a quality, mature composition, but its two choruses and the mellotron finale transcend it to a different level. 

    There isn’t really a true chorus, but they are the end of each of the song’s two fairly conventionally structured halves. The first time through, the vocal climax is big and powerful, with Gabriel unleashing a deep, harrowing, soulful bellow. A brief, relaxing bridge then resets the song back to its start and a second run through of the verse. By the ‘chorus’ second time around, the same section is attacked totally differently. Everything slows down and gives Gabriel and Collins room to share the sweetest almost whispered little quiet duet, adding tension and building a sense that something big is coming. But what we get is indescribably transcendent, as Banks unleashes the most achingly howling, warbling, monumental mellotron showcase ever committed to tape. It is uplifting and heartbreaking, inspirational and gut-wrenching, all in one. It is a brief, hidden, undervalued slice of vintage analogue mellotron holiness from the absolute clouds.

    I suspect that the pompous haranguing I just spewed about the previous track probably contributes to my slight frustration and cognitive dissonance about the next. Harold The Barrel is jaunty, silly fun and always melodic and energetic, but it seems so frivolous after what felt like the music of the gods. Instead we have a fun, fresh, energetic little pop ditty about…well a man trying to commit suicide obviously. I guess that’s the other element that makes me not fully appreciate this piece, as it is rather dated and dodgy (and very British again) But even still, it is great. It always seems to verge on the mildly embarrassing, but Gabriel always had a great gift not just for black humour once again, but an almost self-destructive propensity to flirt with precipices but then pull you back with moments of beauty, grace and meaning. This track doesn’t quite do that (except for its random, token, pretty piano bridge), but it is brimming with such creativity as to be really enjoyable. There are fun and satisfying little brief nuggets and gems of random melody, sweet harmony, left-field noises and all kinds of other non-sequitur moments that are very clever and effective.

    Harlequin is another of the softer pieces and the most immediately reminiscent of their previous work on Trespass. This makes sense as it is the track’s one album to give a writing credit to the recently departed Anthony Phillips. Written by Phillips and Rutherford, it is exactly the kind of 12-string sweetness that was their bread and butter, with a beautifully optimistic and affectionate lyric. It allows Gabriel to dip back into a bit of retro teenage angel mode from their earliest work. It’s not a sound his hard-worn voice could pull off for much longer but goodness could he still here, with some help from the luscious sweetness of a teenage Collins falsetto harmony. The track is certainly nothing special but never for a second is it anything less than lush and lovely in its harmonies, on guitar and vocally. On top of it all comes some easy to miss but effective little tinkles from Banks across the Hammond which top it off nicely. 

    Last comes the final tome, The Fountain of Salmacis, as the band go into full on Greek mythology territory, recounting the tale of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis. It’s the most stop-start and imperfect of the three epics, guilty of the occasional stodginess of structure and phrasing early Genesis could fall into. It’s very wordy and its story is very busy, but it is worth it primarily for its magnificent middle section. 

    The track starts with an iconic mellotron swell that recurs throughout the piece, with Banks surging on left hand and arpeggiating right hand. The mellotron dominates, almost to a point of being too loud, but the key undercurrent comes from Rutherford’s bass pedals, footwork he so adeptly employed throughout the band’s career. The pedals pulse and swell along with the mellotron, giving depth to the bottom end. From there, the first three minutes is not hugely spectacular, with verses and bridges introducing the story without digging deep into territory of particular melody or power. But it is after the end of this section, launched by Gabriel’s warning lament as Salmacis that ‘we shall be joined as one’ that things become truly amazing. 

    The jam throughout the middle section reminds of later powerful Genesis peaks. First, a clear tempo and volume change driven by Rutherford’s rhythm guitar and Hackett’s slithery, sharp solo, gives a clue that we’re into the fun stuff. But it constantly goes in directions you don’t expect, starting with a brief little funky moment where the rest of the band backs down and lets Rutherford and Collins saw away for a few measures on bass and drums. In fact, the drum sound of Collins throughout is bizarre and amazing, with his tomtoms dampened, detuned and/or muted to such an extent that they take on a tribal sound, upon which he frenetically congas.

    Banks then charges back in with huge organ chords, backed subtly by maybe Gabriel’s most effective ever flute contribution. Hackett and Banks then interplay continually throughout an angelic yet terror-laden Hermaphroditus vocal bridge, complete with heavenly choirs. This sections launches into what feels for all money like a grand finale, except that we’re only five minutes in and there’s yet more ferocious Rutherford and Collins anchored jamming. A signature snaking Banks arpeggio then completes the sensational sequence before resetting back to the start, another verse, vocal climax, and a sombre but still lush closing sequence driven by yet another aching, longing solo from Hackett.

    Both song and album can be said to not be the absolute best of Genesis, but they both aptly and powerfully capture a nice essence of all the grand, wacky, wild, pretentious, absurd, powerful varieties of sounds and moods that classic Genesis were all about.




    Edited by banjosoap - February 09 2022 at 08:50
    Back to Top
    Philchem8 View Drop Down
    Forum Senior Member
    Forum Senior Member
    Avatar

    Joined: November 12 2021
    Location: Ottawa
    Status: Offline
    Points: 231
    Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Philchem8 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 13 2022 at 12:40
    Wow, that must be the longest and best review of Nursery Cryme that I have seen so far! And it was quite a good read. Great analysis of the album and its individual compositions. 
    I find little to disagree with except perhaps a couple of points where the critique appears to be based more on subjective preferences than an objective assessment (to the extent that is possible) of the music. I may somewhat misunderstand what you mean, but when you qualify Trespass with the phrase "but heavily folk-dominated effort" and Nursery Cryme with "remains very much in the folky realm at times", there seems to be an implicit judgment that such folk influences somehow take away from the value of these albums, whereas in my opinion, this is just a question of taste. Unless one considers "folk-rock" to be somehow less worthy as a genre, a more objective assessment should be based NOT on whether there are more or less folk elements on these albums, but on the extent to which  these elements are creative, well-executed and effectively integrated within the compositions so that they contribute to the overall quality and innovativeness of the music. In those respects, I find that the 12-strings, melodic arpeggios, which started appearing with Trespass, are an essential part of what made the distinctive "Genesis sound" and very much contributed to the strength, originality and beauty of their music. I don't think any other bands were doing this kind of thing in quite the same way at the time, and it is certainly not folk in an ordinary sense. On a related matter, rock critics have often dismissed Trespass, with the exception of The Knife, as a rather immature effort consisting of idyllic, pastoral songs, not far removed from Genesis's much more mainstream first album. However, those critics have evidently not carefully listened to the album, which in my ears integrates a mix of pastoral, hard rock, classical and soul influences into often complex and highly original compositions. While not quite on the same level as Nursery Cryme and Genesis' later albums, I think that with time, Trespass has been increasingly appreciated by prog listeners and recognized by them as the first album to develop Genesis'unique style of progressive rock (as can be seen for instance by the ratings it receives on this web site). 
    This does not take away anything from your excellent review, but I thought it was worth pointing out. Another part that made me cringe very slightly is the use of the words "simple" and "conventional" to describe elements of Seven Stones, which I agree with you is an under-rated track of Nursery Cryme. Granted, as compared to Musical Box or the Fountain of Salmacis, Seven Stones is not particularly complex musically-speaking, but it has an overall mysterious atmosphere and mood that was anything but conventional as compared to most rock music that was made at the time.                 


    Edited by Philchem8 - February 13 2022 at 12:56
    Back to Top
    banjosoap View Drop Down
    Forum Groupie
    Forum Groupie


    Joined: April 07 2007
    Location: Australia
    Status: Offline
    Points: 102
    Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote banjosoap Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 24 2022 at 03:16
    Oh yeah fair enough. Nah I'm not making an inherent judgement on their folksiness being bad. I think I definitely prefer the harder stuff (hence why later is to come) which probably seeped into it but nah I'm more just laying out the narrative of their journey. It's not 'Trespass wasn't amazing, Nursery Cryme was better but similar and still not great, rest are better' it's more 'the Genesis journey (ignoring Revelation) starts in a very folk-heavy 12-string heavy place, we're still here for this album'. I'm mainly talking about how I consider Nursery Cryme (absolutely to its credit) to be the exact balance point where the folkier earlier material and the heavier later material meet in the middle and mesh really nicely. But yeah, though I'm not a massive folk rock guy generally speaking (I mean its relative, Tull are legends, and I adore things like Simon and Garfunkel and the best electric Dylan and Byrds stuff so I mean, sh*t yeah it's great!), I think Genesis are extra amazing with it in the kind of way you point out. They're the only band I know (certainly classic prog band) whose material, especially around this era, is so lushly covered with endless 12-string stuff, and it's amazing. I wax lyrical about The Musical Box as pretty much a perfect exemplar prog epic. It's in my Top 10 or 20 songs of all time, and it's their greatest 12-string workout ever.

    Trespass is definitely not as good as the four that followed for me, but that's not really 'because' it's folky, it's more just that it's a bit patchier and not yet as polished and professional. I think, as lovely a 12-string player and great a writer and early dominant presence in the Genesis compositional collective as Phillips is, that the big change that took Genesis to a new level as a band was getting Hackett and Collins in. I talk about it in there a bit, how the tightness, the crispness of the overall sound is just so much more refined and polished and harder-edged with the relative virtuosity of Collins and Hackett coming in and giving a kick up the ass of what had until then been more of a songwriters' collective. Speaking as a drummer, the robotic stodginess of Mayhew limits it so badly relative to what would be to come.

    But yeah, you're totally right. The only truly 'pastoral' track without any epic, hard, textbook Prog workouts involved in Trespass is Dusk. The other five are all legit fantastic, and Dusk is beautiful. I love Trespass and would totally aggressively take the same offense as you with anyone claiming it to be a write-off more akin to their debut. All five of the classic Prog-era albums are magnificent and 4 stars or above, it basically does come down to personal taste. Given I slightly prefer the broader, harder sound of later on, and given I (like most I think) generally think Trespass is just a slightly more formative effort, where you can tell the 'growing pains' a bit, it falls a tad short so is the only one of the five not to make my final Top 52.

    But to give context there, it's still in or near my Top 100. In my slightly rough unofficial count (this was just all the prep work I did rating tons of albums to make sure I got my final 52 right), I have it ranked No.101, in the 8 to 8.5/10 range, compared to Nursery Cryme at 31 in the 9 to 9.25/10. It's still the fifth best Genesis album for me, which puts it (very narrowly) above something as brilliant as A Trick of the Tail, as well as W&W and those beyond. I have it roughly around the same kind of status as other adored classic rock/prog albums like Aqualung, Moving Pictures, Quadrophenia, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Hot Rats, Zep 3, TFTO, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Focus II etc. That certainly isn't a status that fits with any fool who dismisses it as 'before Genesis really starting getting good'.

    But yeah. I think there's a decent jump from Trespass to Nursery Cryme, which I consider the first of their near-perfect four masterpiece albums that smash in or near my Top 30 ever!


    Edited by banjosoap - February 24 2022 at 03:22
    Back to Top
    Philchem8 View Drop Down
    Forum Senior Member
    Forum Senior Member
    Avatar

    Joined: November 12 2021
    Location: Ottawa
    Status: Offline
    Points: 231
    Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Philchem8 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 25 2022 at 14:56
    Thanks for your feedback banjosoap. All good points, and I agree practically with everything you say here. Trespass is very good but the band still had some way to go in terms of composition and musicianship, which was significantly enhanced with Hackett and Collins. My point was more that the album has been underrated, and that I find the pastoral acoustic guitar and flute passages quite good (though I see you do as well).  And while I really like Nursery Cryme, I still do not consider it quite a masterpiece. I would roughly rate both albums similar to you.  

    Edited by Philchem8 - February 25 2022 at 14:56
    Back to Top
    banjosoap View Drop Down
    Forum Groupie
    Forum Groupie


    Joined: April 07 2007
    Location: Australia
    Status: Offline
    Points: 102
    Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote banjosoap Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 23 2022 at 01:34
    Next up!

    30. The Who – Who’s Next (1971)

    https://hossalbumreviews.wordpress.com/2022/03/17/30-the-who-whos-next-1971/
    SIDE A

    1. Baba O’Riley – 5:08
    2. Bargain – 5:34
    3. Love Ain’t For Keeping – 2:10
    4. My Wife – 3:41
    5. The Song Is Over – 6:14

    SIDE B

    6. Getting In Tune – 4:50
    7. Going Mobile – 3:42
    8. Behind Blue Eyes – 3:42
    9. Won’t Get Fooled Again – 8:32

    1971’s Who’s Next is the fifth album of legendary British rockers The Who, right in the middle of a peak sequence of their most revered and classic works. Though it is a time run thing and I’m never quite sure of my own personal preference, this album does tend to be the consensus pick when it comes to arguments over which work is The Who’s peak. It is one of those albums whose status and cultural ubiquity seems to almost eclipse the details of some of the content within. Though the whole album is quite consistent throughout in its sustained crisp, professional overall quality, it can (and rather will here throughout) be argued that the majority of the album is a bit middling. It’s not that anything is bad, or indeed anything less than fundamentally excellent. This is the only album The Who ever made where there is truly not a filler minute throughout (and that’s partly the point). It is all a top class expression of mainstream, melodic, thoughtful, still powerful hard rock which continues The Who’s trajectory towards the complex and melancholy relative to their earlier raucous party anthems. Few contemporary works were comparable. But relative to their own deep catalogue of classics, and to universally acknowledged seminal masterpiece albums of similar acknowledged all time great status, quite a lot is merely ‘fine’.

    Why then, is this album so particularly special? It just is. It’s the vibe of the thing, both in your ears and throughout the surrounding cultural ether. It just feels right that when it comes to all timer discussions, Who’s Next is going to be involved. Everyone with any kind of rock ‘n’ roll focus in their musical preferences knows its associated iconography. The cover is famous, with its brilliant mixing of raw working class imagery and unsettling, monolithic mystery. The boys are committing the rawest of filthy rock ‘n’ roll acts, urinating on a concrete pile that for no apparent reason lingers protruding from a Sl*g heap so desolate as to to evoke the dystopian and alien. The clear 2001: A Space Odyssey reference in the concrete monolith is both topical and further enforcing of its otherworldliness. But even more importantly and famously, the three main masterworks that elevate the album are as perfect, adored and totally widespread a trio of popular music classics as there’s ever been.

    The legendary excellence of the three masterpieces that bookend the album result in maybe the greatest album ever rooted in a structural flow common to many other worthy albums. It is what I call a concave album, or a fishbowl (halfpipe, whatever vaguely inaccurate analogy you want). The top and bottom carry the load with a lull in the middle. While many greater albums maintain a similar level throughout, it is no fault of the middle five tracks that they can’t reach the all-time obscene heights of Baba O’Riley (and to a lesser extent Bargain) up-front, then Behind Blue Eyes and Won’t Get Fooled Again at the back. Sometimes, this natural dip can make me underappreciate the album, by creating a misleading sense of filler sameyness through the bulk of the album. But it also is to its benefit. As I’ve talked about on this blog before, an easy to wrap your head around intuitive flow to proceedings helps make an album easier to swallow. So it’s even less surprise than it already was how huge this record was, because it so clearly and drastically fires straight up into a grand and momentous opening, then comes back full circle to an even more mighty closing sequence. The sounds within are indelibly iconic the whole way though. The patented familiarity of Daltrey’s power and passion, Townshend’s simple, driving, power chords and Entwistle and Moon’s speeding semi-trailer of careening chaos is all there. But it has been harnessed in a crisper, clearer, more direct and melodic way than ever before, with new sounds and technology added in to the mix.

    -

    The Who were already one of the hugest bands on Earth. There had been countless pop hits, spectacular live shows and diverse album directions peaking with the previous tome Tommy. But with the 70s upon us and rock music evolving into its era of most reverential self-importance, one of the great rock ‘n’ roll bands had not really yet produced that one true masterful, start to finish ‘serious’ work’. There’d always been ambition. There’d been Tommy of course, which was ambitious in scope, dark in theme, and generally sensational. But like all concept albums it was rather weighed down by its own pretensions, limited in musical scope by its recurring themes, and with enough breaks into filler or camp comedy as to not feel complete as a whole coherent masterwork. Looking forward, Quadrophenia trades in some of the camp and humour for even more repetition and weightiness, to its detriment. Both these adjacent rock operas, and all the albums and singles of their whole discography are full of quality, with delirious peaks everywhere. But no other album from The Who, before or after, ever presented as clear and coherent a flowing musical vision where every track was its own fully fledged original idea as Who’s Next. There was always either schlocky elements early on, lower end filler throughout, or the occasional vices of conceptual tomes. But on Who’s Next quite simpler, there are nine rich, deep, mature, largely brooding and introspective cuts, all original, unique and both sophisticated yet accessible.

    Townshend himself knew the importance and seriousness with which modern rock was being held, and was a wholesale proponent of it. Rock ‘n’ roll being a vitally important and unifying force in the world was root thematic core of the Lifehouse project from which Who’s Next ultimately developed. Seeking the ultimate follow up to Tommy, Townshend found himself in rather a Brian Wilson style situation, trying to achieve the impossible and turning all the ambition, scale, scope and pretension meters up to 11 until invariably it all became too unwieldy and disappeared up its own backside. What exactly Lifehouse would have been is not entirely clear, and I’m not sure it ever firmly was even for Townshend himself. But the general idea was a multimedia project exploring and extolling rock music as a great unifying universal force in the world. There was scope for recorded, live and film components, and more. The basic narrative was a rather commonly done concept (though I think Townshend was first of those I know), involving a dystopian future where music is banned, and revolutionaries bring it back to the masses.

    As part of the preparation work, Townshend organised a series of concerts involving an invited youth audience with the intention being to involve audience participation to shape the musical and narrative structure in an organic live way. One example that eventually bore some relevant fruit on the album, was of That the result, after breaking down the concept into constituent fragments, was to have audience members input some of their own personal details into the numbers-based computers that then translated their data into synthesized musical output. As a futuristic story, computers and futuristic sounds were at the forefront of the plans, and would eventually manifest as the iconic synth parts on the album’s two most famous bookending tomes. However, unsurprisingly if anyone knows the nature of people and society, Townshend couldn’t get audience participation buy-in, from crowds that just wanted to be entertained by a major pop act with their major pop hits. On top of all this, the project was clearly an unwieldy mess, with mileage varying in terms of band member commitment, clear skepticism from and an eventually falling out with manager Kit Lambert, and a general lack of focus and coherence. Townshend just couldn’t corral his almost boundless ambitions into any kind of achievable reality and both his own mental state and the fraying edges of the band invariably decayed into Wilsonesque territory, until eventually it was all dramatically abandoned.

    That such a bonafide professional masterwork resulted from the burning debris of Lifehouse, not the kind of low-fi cathartic controlled terrain-burn of Smiley Smile, makes the achievement of this album all the more remarkable. The songs were clearly there, and with the advancements in available instrumental and recording technology meted to Townshend’s conscious attempt to leap into the future, a richer sonic landscape than ever was there for The Who to work with. This new and improved sonic sophistication and expansion was layered on top of, and provided structural discipline and precision for and alongside, all the tried and true elements of The Who’s established thick, raucous, hard rock sound. Strip these mighty compositions of the extraneous fiddle-faddle of trying to tie them all together and craft the perfect rock opera, and you’re just left with a sequence of top quality melodic hard rock.

    -

    What can anyone say about the magnificent Baba O’Riley? It is one of the foremost of all rock’s universally revered gems. It feels so strange to me in hindsight that I did not know it at all, compared to my intimacy with the two classics at the end of the album, until hearing this whole album properly as an adult. That can largely he put down to CSI and Limp Bizkit more than anything I guess. But it drives home just how special this is because if you told me as a teenager that Behind Blue Eyes and Won’t Get Fooled Again would only round out the podium on their albums, with neither as the best track, that would have seemed absurd. But this structurally simple and emotionally charged rock classic has just the right amount of extraneous brilliance to elevate it to another level. First is the otherworldly synth intro of course. Is there a more recognisable and unique opening to any classic album ever? The namesakes of the song are most directly referenced in this intro. Meher Baba, the Indian spiritual guru, influenced Townshend greatly and although this isn’t the final data, the original idea as per Lifehouse ideals was to input data related to Baba’s life and personality into synthesizers to be translated into music. Meanwhile, the eventually hypnotic ostinato used is inspired directly by the modal work of modern classical composer Terry Riley.

    This synth intro is cut into by yet another sacred monument, those three simple and constantly quoted trusty notes on the piano. Once the whole band has launched into things, the song bounds forward, driven by Moon’s busy newly focused playing and Daltrey’s endless energy. Townshend’s pained ‘Teenage Wasteland’ bridge is a change of mood and tone that makes the re-launch back into the verses even more powerful. Everything is excellent. From the intro through the bulk of the track, you already have a classic, but then comes the most profound beauty yet at the end. Guest player Dave Arbus slides into the outtro with the most achingly gorgeous violin part, to which the whole rest of the band eventually gives way, only to surge back an re-accelerate into a cacophonous finale as monstrous as the track deserves.

    Bargain is a remarkable smooth piece. Sometimes I feel it’s the most underrated masterpiece in their whole catalogue, though I think that’s just from me personally as I didn’t know it like their hit singles until getting this album. Everyone in the fandom appears to adore it and I certainly understand why. I can also understand why it can be forgotten when you’re thinking about the very best of The Who. They are usually defined by constant energy, volume and driving momentum. But Bargain is so, almost relaxed? It has a cool, smooth vibe to it that best drives home what an effective new atmosphere this modern more disciplined, evolved and high fidelity new Who could achieve.

    It’s all anchored in some unusually tempered acoustic guitar, starting the song and recurring throughout and laid alongside the famous excellent synth additions. The way the band then fires in after the brief prologue is indicative of the whole track. By no means is this not still a monumentally hard rocking song, with Moon in fine form, Townshend’s vintage power chords and Daltrey in full hoarse grunge mode. But it is the crispness of production and in particular, the patience and dynamism at play that makes this track work. Each of those hard bursts occur after so many gorgeously tense and satisfying little pauses and breaks, where things never stop but generally calm down into some combination of acoustic work or uncharacteristic Moon precision. You can just get the sense that every single note has been lovingly crafted from composition to production, to make an ultra-professional but still fun and driving rock classic. No track better reflects the influence and brilliance of producer Glyn Johns than here.

    -

    Love Ain’t For Keeping is a simple and pleasant short detour which has a bluesy country feel. It’s two light and breezy minutes of romantic optimism awash with gorgeous acoustic guitars, an instrument Townshend continued to explore more as The Who moved through and then beyond the 60s and their harder edged beginnings. Though reasonably forgettable, it is indicative of this album that instead of the patchiness of the filler on most Who albums, this is still a track of utmost top of the line professionalism and pleasant sonic textures. Bassist John Entwistle’s contribution to the album is My Wife. It is the only non-Townshend track and only non-Lifehouse derived piece on the album, and its mood shift is perfect. Entwistle’s compositions tend to share similar characteristics each time, with highly simple driving hard rock pieces led by memorable, often goofy main riffs or melodies and generally comic lyrics. This is no different, with a hilarious and very awkwardly vintage take on the old ball and chain, telling a story of a man caught cheating and going to all lengths and the very ends of the Earth to avoid the fiery wrath of a woman scored. It is brilliant and interesting musically though, and Townshend was lavish in his praise of the song. It is a wonderful showcase for Entwistle’s many talents, fitting nicely and effectively in his vocal range, with driving bass and piano and a feature horn section as a functional chorus, all played by the man himself. Moon’s drums pound away ferociously and in a less refined manner than most of the album. The reverb-heavy, thick low end sound of Moon’s rolling toms would not have been out of place on early hits like I’m A Boy or Happy Jack. Overall, you get a piece that is clearly light comic relief on the album, both lyrically and sonically, but the more you listen the more you realise it’s also a bonafide highlight.

    Side A ends with The Song Is Over, the album’s big mid-track showcase and the most overtly Lifehouse derived piece throughout. It is a song I tend to underrate, as implied earlier by my talking about the bowl-like structure of the album and putting the start and end pieces on a pedestal. This is an adored Who epic, but it’s where the whole glowing sheen of the evolving Who really starts to take over. By the 1973 follow-up Quadrophenia, the energy of The Who had for me arguably given way to more pedestrian albeit gorgeous ‘high-end’ mature stuff. It’s certainly not a criticism overall, but it makes songs like this a little less immediately accessible and penetrable. Furthermore, it was the originally planned closer of the whole Lifehouse narrative and one that I feel suffers the most from being divorced of that context, where it could have been spectacular. It gets right to the crux of the core Lifehouse concept, of the sacred spiritual power of music as some great social unifying force. It effectively shifts between tender, reflective ballad, with Townshend’s melancholy vocal and piano, and a powerful Daltrey driven inspirational and optimistic rock section. A darling song among the ‘serious’ rock critics, that juxtaposition is musically and emotionally interesting and effective, allowing this piece to flourish both as beautiful softer piece and the kind of grand anthemic statement they were always so good at.

    Side B opens with another core thematic Lifehouse piece, Getting In Tune. This is a Who classic I think I underappreciate it a bit, but it does show the unmatched consistency of this album that I consider it one of the weaker numbers. It is another critically adored, subtle, dynamic piece. Up front it has a fairly standard, unchallenging hooky pop nature to it, alternating between melancholy piano sequences and harder rock sections, but as ever, those dynamics are amazing, with all kinds of tempo shifts and an easy to overlook fabulous raucous conclusion. The lyrics are a very clear, up front, relatable metaphor that more than any other summarise the basic themes at play throughout and on Townshend’s mind at the time, as he laments his current relationship to music, rock ‘n’ roll, industry and lifestyle, but lauds and works to seek the spiritual and human connecting power of music. Like us all, he’s trying to ‘get in tune’ with what matters to him, spiritually, in love and life. That’s a universal and powerful analogy but in this case, it is double layered as music itself is the avenue for which Townshend seeks this enlightenment. Next comes the light relief of the much maligned Going Mobile, where the density and intensity of proceedings loosens up in a happy, light, fun little acoustic-led country-influenced pop ditty celebrating the joys of adventure and travel. It is often dismissed by ‘serious’ critics and for sure it is the weakest track on the album, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong it. It has pleasant melodies, a driving energy even without the usual Who hard and sharpness, and Townshend’s limited but tender vocals fit the key and the atmosphere of the song perfectly. This track, and its place within the album, is an example of how important the right sequencing is on an album. With the twelve elite and overwhelming minutes to come, this little rest is in fact absolutely perfect and just feels right as a still enjoyable intermission from the high intensity. By the end, you’re intuitively ready to reorient back into a big finish, and they don’t come bigger than here.

    -

    Behind Blue Eyes. You all know it. You probably had an emo phase of it being one of your all time favourite songs as a teenager, even this many generations divorced from its original release and context. Depending on age maybe it was even Limp Bizkit’s competent enough cover (given it lacks the payoff of the late section and given its you know, Limp Bizkit). I’m of the right age that distressingly and hilariously, I knew that first, when only aware of the most mighty of huge pop mega-hits of The Who. But I knew of them and this classic is around enough that I quickly became aware of the original, and just as quickly enamoured with its astonishing beauty and power. In its earliest Lifehouse narrative context, this was the theme song of the misunderstood villain of the piece, Jumbo, which makes total sense. It is a deathly sad song in reality, lamenting the feelings of being misunderstood, maligned and forced by society to play roles that don’t reflect well on you and maybe you don’t want to. The tender aching beauty of Daltrey’s delivery, over the perfect simple acoustic figures, make it as iconic a moving soft elegy as any other melancholy acoustic number that ever exists. Then it really gets good.

    What was already a masterpiece of simple, direct, effective emotion, transcends to another level in its ferocious, powerful, technically genius second half. Daltrey’s sweet oohs give way to a monumental rockout, where Keith Moon leads the way as ever, finally unleashing at his fullest and most breakneck speed on the whole album. Townshend solos alongside, all over brilliant powerful base chords that anchor a beauty and power all the same to proceedings, and frame Daltrey’s angered, impassioned delivery of some of Townshend’s all time great lyrics. It is all excellent of course, but Moon really is the star. It’s the greatest sequence of his entire wild repertoire, as skillfully frenetic and crazy as he always is, but showing his undervalued intelligence as a unique, clever, drummer in service of the tune. Moon isn’t filling the space between the vocals and Townshend riffs with his fills, he’s using that space to just drive, propelling the whole energy forward by sticking to the main rhythms, but then as Daltrey spits the vitriolic lyrics, Moon chooses that moment to fire away, adding to the feeling of anger and chaos.

    Won’t Get Fooled Again takes things to another level again to finish the album. Maybe the most famous and iconic of all Who songs, with similar pop cultural presence in my time growing up through CSI: Miami, this is the album’s ultimate centrepiece. All the different Lifehouse themes, hard but crisply produced rock sounds, and synth experiments, come together in one eight-plus minute tome that is one of all the time classic rock ‘n’ roll epics. Entwistle’s basslines the whole way through are absurd and this is one of the handful of occasions where the general penchant towards burying the bass in the overall Who production sound is a bit frustrating. Moon and Daltrey are at their best doing what they do, with Moon particularly cleverly and satisfyingly keeping himself alongside the subtle rhythmic shifts of the synthesized Lowrey organ figures that are the song’s anchor. But the star here is the particularly crunchy, buzz-saw sound of Townshend’s guitars, which whirl away further from his usual power chord base than ever.

    Each verse, chorus and breakaway solo workout is subtly different and more interesting than the last, before it all eventually builds to a final breakdown, leaving just that astonishing, hypnotic synthesized organ to pulse away in a long slow-down bridge. The re-entry from this synth section is close to the greatest and most famous in all of rock, with Moon thundering back in with fill after fill, before building to the ultimate crescendo of Daltrey’s CSI-tastic memefied yeah scream, his and perhaps all of rock’s most famous ‘rock yeah!’ That, somewhat strangely I’ve always felt, leaves a random little final section with an entirely new lyric and vocal figure, but the ending is still big and fabulous. It’s not necessarily so that this is definitely the album’s best track. The utter untouchable mastery of Baba O’Riley and Behind Blue Eyes makes that a difficult question. But it is the album’s centrepiece. Nothing better summarises what The Who at their very artistic peak at this time were about.


    Back to Top
    banjosoap View Drop Down
    Forum Groupie
    Forum Groupie


    Joined: April 07 2007
    Location: Australia
    Status: Offline
    Points: 102
    Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote banjosoap Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 30 2022 at 04:41

    29. Van Der Graaf Generator – H to He, Who Am The Only One (1970)

    https://hossalbumreviews.wordpress.com/2022/04/28/29-van-der-graaf-generator-h-to-he-who-am-the-only-one-1970/

    SIDE A

    1. Killer – 8:24
    2. House With No Door – 6:37
    3. The Emperor In His War Room – 8:15
    a. “The Emperor” (0:00-5:05)
    b. “The Room” (5:05-8:15)

    SIDE B

    4. Lost – 11:17
    a. “The Dance in Sand and Sea” (0:00-5:40)
    b. “The Dance in Frost” (5:40-11:17)
    5. Pioneers Over C – 12:42

    When I was about 16 or 17, smack bang in the middle of my rapid musical horizon expansion, my usual learning source and treasured friend gave me the latest of many collections of wild and wonderful music from this new and exciting whole venerable and old Progressive Rock genre. One of those, was the song Killer, by Van Der Graaf Generator. It immediately became one of my all time favourites and forever holds an important place as one of the great Prog classics. It is fun, simple and catchy, rocking hard around a basic but enthralling organ riff and the astonishing vocals of young Peter Hammill. It was wild and crazy and energetic and fun, but also dark, sinister and sad, and with a unique organ and saxophone led instrumental palette, no guitars to be seen. In short, it is quintessential Van Der Graaf Genlerator and for me, as surely it was for so many others, the perfect introductory track to this unknown band. Next therefore, came the rest of the album it is from, the bafflingly titled H to He, Who Am The Only One.

    As a whole album, it expands on the same vibe as Killer, functioning as the most accessible and immediate of the band’s classic work. It was the first of theirs I heard, which might be the nostalgic reason why I consider it the best (against convention wisdom), but it really should be the first anyone hears. Whether it is their best is arguable. That is it not their most refined, professional, complex and ingenious work is inarguable. That is probably Pawn Hearts, which I covered before, or maybe even later works like Godbluff or Still Life. But it is without question, (of the classic albums I’m most familiar), their most immediate, their most upfront and upbeat (at least musically if not lyrically). This is a unique, deep, dense, thoughtful but eminently enjoyable album all the way through, absolutely one of the greats.

    The circumstances behind the making of the album were unusually chaotic for a band so early in their history. But then Van Der Graaf Generator, with their intense personalities, the ambition of Peter Hammill, and the heavy duty nature of their music (in both difficulty and theme) were always an inch from disaster through their whole very stop-start history. The early days of the band, through 1968 and 69, were fraught with problems. There was major financial troubles, line-up shifts, equipment theft and contract shenanigans between different companies. So all the usual troubles of the time really, but a confluence of misfortune resulted in the band being without a recording contract, the capacity to shop their music to or release it with any other record company (due to Hammill being hemmed in by an older contract) and no equipment. The result was their breakup in May 1969. Frontman Hammill then proceeded with solo shows and recordings. However he used his former bandmates on his album sessions and after some rethinking and various negotiations to solve old knotty contract disputes, it was decided to release the psychedelic tinged The Aerosol Grey Machine under the Van Der Graaf Generator name.

    By 1970, the fully fledged VDGG were back and their second album, The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other was a critical and commercial success, with just enough of an accessible flavour on top of their new, dense, deep, dark patented sound. Hammill, bassist Nic Potter, drummer Guy Evans, and the expanding organ work of Hugh Banton had been joined by David Jackson on saxophone and flute. As the band went on gigging full time throughout 1970, still struggling to make ends meet, the tracks that would make up H to He were devised and recorded, but sporadically amidst the relentless touring demands. These demands, coupled with musical differences, saw Potter leave the band in mid 1970 at an inopportune time, with approximately half the album recorded. This final personnel shift was the catalyst for the last changes that would come to define the great VDGG sound. Banton adding a Hammond Organ to his repertoire and playing most bass parts, live and on record, on its bass pedals. Meanwhile Jackson converted full time to playing entirely electric saxophones, largely self-rigged, to allow him greater volume and expand the sounds available to him as they could be processed through various effects boxes. This Hammill, Banton, Jackson, Evans four-piece would come to be the classic lineup, but the slight contrast between the tracks recorded with and without Potter, as well as the contribution from major guest star Robert Fripp, add to the variety and the always subtly shifting sonic landscape of the album.

    That somehow, this relatively more accessible effort than some of the later ones, was particularly poorly received upon its initial release, seems strange. But so far much of that is always likely about name recognition and context. Not only were these guys not yet an established major act, but they had disappeared completely a couple of times, and this album was recorded in such fits and starts that it didn’t really garner an environment conducive to any sort of hype. It was also more immediate than the following albums, but not so much compared to its predecessor, particularly the minor crossover pop hit Refugees. More to the point, this is Van Der Graaf Generator we’re talking about. Even in the artsy days of 1970, the critical landscape was best cut out for more traditional rock ‘n’ roll sounds. Whatever crazy things might happen and unique sounds might layer on top, almost everything was rooted in a general base of bass and guitar. Here was a band with no lead guitarist and, by the end of the album, no bass player. Here was a band with its singer insisting upon the high class pristine Englishness of received pronunciation. Here was a band singing about esoteric things, with both themes and sonic palette as dark and dense as they come in the wild party sphere of rock ‘n’ roll. The esoteric references included the title itself. What the whole thing means is unclear to me, but the H to He is referring to the process of nuclear fusion within stars, in which Hydrogen becomes Helium.

    Killer is an iconic Prog opener. As I mentioned previously, it is to me one of the quintessential Prog tomes of all. There’ll always be that 10 or 20 songs, of 10 or 20 minutes’ length, that the most hardcore of Prog devotees hold so sacred and this clearly should be among them and easily is for me. It is the signature VDGG song and, simplistic and predictable a pick though it may be, still the greatest for me. It is a simple and rather deceptively sad tale of a killer shark who is forever lonely because he devours all those who come near. The atmosphere does not quite capture that desolation, usually something the band embrace readily, because it is just so anthemic instrumentally. This was by design, out of a desire to create something with commercial appeal. Making it eight minutes was always going to hinder that but given its status to this day, they fundamentally succeeded in making a defining anthem.

    Hammill had a story, lyric and overall structure, but the driving energy of the song comes from the heavy, powerful, simple, straight up rocking iconic excellence of Banton’s main lead organ chord riff. The opening sequence of the track drives on through this simple main theme, with each of Hammill’s sparse, deliberate verses building the the mighty crescendoes that are the song’s most legendary moments. The first ‘dead in the sea’ bridge shifts things up another gear again, with a clear tempo change and another powerful, straight lacked rock riff led by Jackson’s saxophone. The frenetic jazzy section that follows is maybe my sleeper moment for greatest VDGG moment of all, with Evans rat-tatting brilliantly behind an effects-laden, terrifying solo where Banton’s organ sounds like some distorted screaming grizzly bear. The bridge riff then returns, but led by piano, allowing Jackson to saw away into maybe the most astonishingly filthy sax solo in all of recorded history. It is foul in the most awesome way, gritty, squealing, distorted and crusty all in equal measure.

    The opening structure resumes with the final verse, but with everything turned up another level again, to maximum levels of epic grandiosity. The structure really is very simple, alternating between two main riffs. Banton’s long, drawn out, epic chords are the bread and butter, with the faster bridge section providing the punches of energy, which it once again effectively does at the end, leading the song to its mighty squealing conclusion. It is fundamentally a straight laced hard rock classic, which can be kind of hard to compute without all the screaming guitars. But once you peel back those layers of sonic familiarity you get a song that just staraght kicks ass.

    After all the ferocious energy and power of such a mighty classic, any worthwhile artist was always going to shift down to a more tender number second. But few reach quite the solemn beauty of the achingly gorgeous and melancholy House With No Door. This is peak proto-gothic crooning Hammill. It is a desperately devastating song but somehow through its chord changes and Hammill’s sweetness of young, unblemished tone, still hopeful. Once again, everything is strikingly simple. The song is essentially a sad piano ballad, with particularly prominent and always interesting bass guitar parts. That it was recorded after Potter left and is maybe the album’s most notable bass part, speaks a lot to Banton’s talents as player and composer.

    The verses are soft, sweet and sad, as Hammill laments on loneliness and vulnerability over Banton’s sad piano, before each chorus provides a feeling of relief, if not lyrically, than thanks to the upliftingly swelling tone, as Hammill and band all surge and swell with optimistic vigour. In between these vocal sections is an equally beautiful bdrudge section. The structure doesn’t change, essentially just replacing one of four verse-chorus repetitions with an instrumental section. In the verse, Jackson lays down a peak Prog lilting, sweet, flute solo. In the chorus, this flute and his overlayed sax mesh with Banton’s monster chords to provide the song’s most triumphant moment before returning to the audible heartache of Hammill. He really is the star, with a vocal performance in equal parts virtuosic yet dripping with pure raw emotion, as showcased most stunningly in the final chorus falsetto.

    It’s three gems out of three on the opening side, completely by The Emperor In His War Room. A seven minute epic but with an extremely simple structure, it is divided into two contrasting parts. The opening sequence is a tense and dynamic exploration of the inward and outward torture wrought upon others and the soul by a conflicted but brutal tyrant. It is bristling, always restrained and refusing to burst forth, but full of staccato explosions of energy and fury from Hammill. The verses are slow and sombre, but Hammill’s deranged effects-laden screams propel the band into the firmer, even darker, thick organ-laced chorus section. Three repetitions later and you can sense that something is about to change, and does it ever.

    The first half fades into total silence, before a janky drum break fires back in and launches us into the second part, as close to funky as VDGG ever got. It’s a section that kicks full ass, with a crisp, higher tempo rhythm track backing up one of the more remarkable guest slots ever, featuring the legend himself, Robert Fripp. In his trademark style (with his trademark lack of notice and rehearsal), Fripp seared away, unleashing a jagged, though by his standards quite muted and melodic solo, full of minimalist energy and sustained notes. This long solo and energetic section gives way back to a reprise of the main verse-chorus structure, completing an efficient and effective exploration of so many standard VDGG tropes, not an absolutely delirious standout but a perfect summary of everything they do well.

    Side B is where the album at times meanders a little more, after a consistently punchy and economic first half (by their standards). The two tracks here both stretch over ten minutes and both jump around more structurally, with more changes of tempo and mood. Lost in particular is the most esoteric of the album’s tracks, which I’ve taken the longest to sink my teeth into. But ironically, it is perhaps the simplest thing they ever did in lyrical theme and concept. It is in fact, a love song! It begins with and always calls back to a frenetic, discordant little flute and organ ostinato that immediately established a tense atmosphere of lost love, and features some of the album’s most direct and powerful bass work. The early sequence of the piece alternates between this more crazed main riff, and a beautiful, melodic, melancholy main verse, the ‘I know I’ll never dance’ motif that gives thsong most of its emotional energy.

    After just a couple of minutes comes the first wild detour, as the band fire away into a mighty rockout more reminiscent of stuff that would come on their later albums. A distorted organ riff gives way into a high speed saxophone led staccato jam that is definitely the song’s highlight everytime it occurs, though it never seems quite to know how to resolve. The minimalist, sparse, bass-heavy section that always follows contrasts beautifully though. The ‘it’s far too late to contemplate’ motif that comes next recalls House With No Door in its aching, careening sorrow.

    That I’m constantly quoting lyrics instead of being more descriptive says so much about how difficult this song is to pin down. Every section is wonderful but it moves so fast between motifs that you can’t actually keep up and it means that I always reflect on this as the track on the album I appreciate the least. The middle of the song definitely is the most meandering section of the whole album, plodding along quite slowly, though with reason and thematic significance, as heartbreak overcomes our narrator. The main highlight motifs always return though, jumping back in and out as the end approaches. This includes a hilarious, counting down breakdown, as the rockout section occurs a second time, before the song’s conclusion ratchets up to a surprisingly simple and effective emotional climax, as Hammill professes his love for this unnamed woman again and again.

    Pioneers Over C also goes on a wild journey in and out of melody and focus, but it is one that is appropriate for its sprawling, sci-fi tale. It will always be a favourite of mine as it tells a story of the kind that will always be appealing to me. The song tracks a group of faraway space travelers (the pioneers) who end up exceeding (going over) the speed of light (C). Such a functionally impossible physically barrier always provides great fodder for creative wonderment. What possible sensations could occur beyond this threshold? In this case, they enter an unstable time warp that makes time shift and bend backwards and forwards in rapid, non-linear fashion. Eventually they return to Earth, but many centuries have passed and all they knew and loved is long gone. It’s not quite straight up gravitational time dilation, but it’s still good, proven sci-fi fare.

    A thematically fitting nasty little, terrifying, sci-fi horror organ tone opens things, before the first of the song’s two iconic basslines, a slow, ponderous, gorgeous organ bass figure that anchors the slow entry of the rest of the band. After a first verse based around this melody, the tempo shifts up to the other famous moment, with bass guitar the fore in one of Prog’s all time great, and rock ‘n’ roll’s undervalued and most unknown, classic basslines. More slow, tense story building and shifting, evolving moments and riffs unfurl from there, as the song builds in much the same complex manner as its predecessor, but with a more melodic bent.

    The middle of this final track introduces all kinds of wonderful, new, interesting sonic experimentation, as both Banton’s organs and Jackson’s saxophones continue to push the envelope, while Hammill even briefly introduces a folksy acoustic guitar section. Drum-led funereal dirge, solo, farting sax discordance, and psychedelic organ and drum rockout later, we reach the album’s climax as the first anchoring bassline warbles its way back into proceedings. All the elements from the opening minutes then return for a slightly meddlesome middling finish, but including a striking acapella section and furious deliberate cacophony as the final, seemingly deliberately challenging, section of music on the album. This wildness is overtaken by the most fabulously punchy little overdrive tone that ends the album on a single note of pure low end feedback.



    Edited by banjosoap - April 30 2022 at 04:42
    Back to Top
    conjitsuu View Drop Down
    Forum Newbie
    Forum Newbie
    Avatar

    Joined: November 07 2022
    Location: Not Added
    Status: Offline
    Points: 2
    Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote conjitsuu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 28 2023 at 16:09
    Hey, I just wanted to ask what happened to this project, and whether you gave up on it or not
    Back to Top
    conjitsuu View Drop Down
    Forum Newbie
    Forum Newbie
    Avatar

    Joined: November 07 2022
    Location: Not Added
    Status: Offline
    Points: 2
    Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote conjitsuu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 28 2023 at 16:12
    If i wasn't clear I appreeciate the reviews and would like to see you finish the list
    Back to Top
    banjosoap View Drop Down
    Forum Groupie
    Forum Groupie


    Joined: April 07 2007
    Location: Australia
    Status: Offline
    Points: 102
    Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote banjosoap Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 06 2024 at 11:55
    Hi, yes I'm alive!

    Thanks for the support. Just busy with life, but I'll need looking to resume these in about 1 month!
    Back to Top
     Post Reply Post Reply

    Forum Jump Forum Permissions View Drop Down



    This page was generated in 0.500 seconds.
    Donate monthly and keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.