THE LEAST WE CAN DO IS WAVE TO EACH OTHER

While not as experimental or bizarre as the albums following it, The Least We Can Do is still a great VDGG album. The first song builds and builds with a fantastic Hammill vocal and some great organ work from Banton. Jackson is a bit more restrained on this album than he would later be, but a few songs give us a taste of things to come. Whatever Would Robert Have Said? and After The Flood are examples of this, that show us where the band was headed with jagged rhythms, odd time signatures and abrupt mood and tempo changes. I especially love the repeated refrain of "And when the water falls again, all is dead and nobody lives" in After the Flood. These two are obvious highlights, but I find I like the first track and White Hammer nearly as much. WH features some intersting lyrics about the inquisition and white magic. In fact, all the lyrics on this album are quite good, even by Hammill standards. Refugees is something of a mellower ballad type song but does build in intensity as the song progresses. It features lyrics of a personal nature about remembering old friends. Out of my Book is the mellowest song here, and somewhat bland as a result, but does have some nice flute work by Jackson.

Overall, a great album prepairing us for the even better albums to come. I wouldn't consider this a masterpiece due to the fledgling nature of the compositions, which just start to scatch the surface of what this band and Hammill would be capable of in the future. Also, I don't have the remaster of this so the overall sound of my copy is fairly muddy with the drums sounding like cardboard boxes at times. Hopefully the remaster has resolved this particular problem, so I won't detract any stars because of it (after all, it was recorded in Dec. 1969, and being an obscure new band they probably didn't have the best recording resources and did it in something of a rush). For me, a solid 4 star effort for a truely great band.