AS GOOD AS GOLD

Pendragon

Neo-Prog

3.51 | 86 ratings

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ZowieZiggy
Prog Reviewer

This is the last EP from a collection started with "Fly High, Fall Far" in 1984. It is the sixth one of this genre and, no doubt : it is the best one.

It has been mainly released to push the song "As Good As Gold" into the charts. The single edit featured here ignores the long and prog intro to allow radio broadcasting. The full original song clocking at over seven minutes was not the archetype of a chartable track. In the format presented here, it will.

"Bird Of Paradise" is another very beautiful yet simple song (but Pendragon delivers simple music, right ?). A jewel of a melody. A very quiet intro full of subtlety and beauty. Oh boy ! When it comes to release touching music, Pendragon really knows how to do it. "Bird..." is extremely passionate. A great Pendragon song. Thanks for having released it and avoid that such a good piece of music would have been lost.

The best song (at least my preferred one) is "Midnight Running". A wonderful symphonic one. Each aspect of Pendragon can be found here : nice background keys, mellow and gentle vocals, catchy melody, nice chorus and some great guitar work as well. We can't ask for more, I guess. The hypnotic rhythm is very effective.

I do not know why Pendragon did not include it on "The Mascarade". Maybe that it did not fit into the oncept or maybe it was not yet ready when the album was released. As I have written in my review of "Contagion" (from "Arena"), we'll get a live version of the whole of "The Mascarade" with these three new songs of this EP as well as the two ones featured on the special edition of the remastered version of this brilliant work.Anyway, I am very glad that Pendragon recorded it.

"A Million Miles Away" sounds a bit weak in this ensemble. Sweetened to the max. It is too monotonous to be really of interest.

Four stars for this very good mini-album.

ZowieZiggy | 4/5 | 2007-5-27

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