PAWN HEARTS

In September 1971, VdGG finished recording what critics consider their masterpiece, their artistic peak: "Pawn Hearts". it consists of two songs in the first facade and a suite in the second, thus following the fashion inaugurated by King Crimson (Lizard) and Pink Floyd (Atom Heart Mother) in 1970, and continued by EL&P (Tarkus) in 1971.

Side A. "Lemmings". In this song the narrator ascends the hill and sees people jump into the sea, committing suicide like lemmings. The beginning describes this situation with a vocal instrumental crescendo, then the music gets gloomy, Hammill's voice more cavernous because to speak is a person of this people who is committing suicide, who explains his reasons, and concludes by asking "What cause there left but to die?" The music follows the lyrics perfectly, becoming more and more distressing, and the initially grave singing becomes increasingly angry and desperate. The sound is thick, there are keyboards and electronic effects that describe a desolate lunar landscape beaten by winds and misfortunes, and only the acoustic guitar gives some sign of light. Evans's drums combined with the electronic sounds of Banton and Hammill, and Jackson's excruciating saxophone, create an end-of-the- world atmosphere, and one wonders what would add to all this sound, sometimes cacophonous, Potter's bass, whose absence makes the music more silt dry, naked, especially the drums played by Evans. Yet, always with this distressing background, Hammill responds to the suicidal people that lemmings teach nothing and that the only thing left is to live, or at least try. It is a message of hope that arises from despair and therefore is proposed with the same apocalyptic atmosphere but the ending takes place with slow fade, and Gothic mood with flute in very suggestive evidence. First masterpiece, rating 8,5/9.

"Man-Erg". Hammill sings: The killer is inside me, but the angels are also inside me, and I myself are, I do not know who I am and I contain inside me everything, angels and demons. An existentialist text hovers along with an epic piano music from the first note, more melodic than the previous one. Hammill's charge of pathos with his singing making it sublime until Banton fills it with sound effects similar to terrible screams (and perhaps playing bass guitar in the background), and an atmosphere worthy of a horror movie, very rhythmic and menacing thanks to Evans's work, is filled by Hammill's voice with echoes that asks how to be free. It is an artistic moment of the highest of contemporary music. After the fear, returns the melody and the singing of Hammill confirms his path of awareness between epic flashes and menacing progressions, and finally creeps behind the melody the frightening rhythm, which rises in crescendo creating a music on two layers, that melodic-sublime-epic and percussive- looming- terrifying and so Hammill succeeds in the miracle of unifying, to make synchronous two antithetic music, manages to express at the same time and in an intense way, a pathos composed of the two opposite poles: ecstasy and anguish. In my opinion, Man-Erg is maybe the most beautiful songs ever composed. Rating 10.

Side B. "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers", suite formed by ten movements. The lighthouse keeper inaugurates the album suite prophesiing disasters, encrusted with seaweed. behind a melody on the piano that quickly becomes a rabid cry, followed by port noises, perhaps even trains, artfully created by Banton and Jackson: we are in full avant-garde and concrete music, then a solo of organ fades and with the third movement resumes the melody and again the rabid progression, until it begins a much more powerful music in rhythm (S.H.M.) where again the Gurdian-witness growls his despair. Then follows a pause in the music, a suspended moment where Banton is also heard on bass (mixed however always low, not as powerful as Potter used to do), but this is the prelude to the most distressing progression, sung with more pathos than the whole suite, followed by a cacophonous sound orgasm that makes this movement (Kosmos Tour) the most enthralling in the suite. And after the storm returns (for a short time) the serene (Last Stand) with a melody similar to the initial, but this melodic passage, as often happens, is the prologue to the most desecrated and grotesque piece of the record, associated with questions about God as a guide, piece that it ends again in a cacophony similar to the previous, at the end of which Hammill's voice and piano return, which always mark the resumption of the narrative after the storm and the last two movements arrive where hope rises again in the lighthouse keeper, after touching Land's End.

This suite is much more sophysticated and avant-garde than those mentioned at the beginning (Lizard, Atom Heart Mother, Tarkus), which preceded it, and also compared to those of Yes (Close to the Edge) and Genesis (Supper's Ready), released in 1972. This is a real literary poem translated into music, has no refrain, has an unpredictable development that follows Hammill's singing, and can be ardous to listen in various passagess. Compared to the two mini-suites in "From H to He" (Lost and Pioneers), also able to go hand in hand with Hammill's lyrics, this suite has no musical themes that come back, it has no repetitive structures, it is an ever different unfolding, which requires more effort because Hammill's changes in pace and mood can sometimes be exasperating. Rating 9+.

The music of the whole album, characterized by the absence (or almost) of the bass guitar, is much more homogeneous than in the past, and in general the atmospheres of the Lp are less varied: we are faced with the refinement and intensification of a precise songwriting and sound arrangement, which comes here to touch peaks beyond which it would become hyper-accentuated. For all these reasons, I think it is debatable that "Pawn Hearts" is the absolute masterpiece composed by VdGG because "The Least We Can Do" (the most melodic and varied, where the pathos comes directly to hit the listener) is at the opposite pole of "Pawn Hearts" (the most sophisticated and varied in-depth, where the pathos is more filtered and insisted towards a precise sound) but in their complementarity they reach artistic peaks of similar quality, and "From The H to He" possesses intermediate qualities between the two. Therefore, it is difficult to uniquely choose the best masterpiece, among these three artworks, three gigantic operas baked by Hammill and Co. in less than two years: I know no other artist capable of doing the same.

Absolute masterpieces of contemporary music. Rating 10/10. Five stars (and more).