NONE OF THE ABOVE

This umpteenth album from one of the most prolific songwriter is yet another typical album (as if such a thing could exist coming from such an eclectic artist as Hammill), and is a quite reflective and deeply personal album. The songs are always quiet, melancholic and have solemn quality about them. In some ways, you could imagine that Leonard Cohen could have written such an album if he had a progressive touch as Hammill does. Do not get the wrong idea, I am not calling TAG a prog album per se, but clearly there are strong evidence of this at times. If I mention Cohen, it is because outside of one track, Like Veronica (a much faster, harder and tougher track), the album is much like a slow, serene, supremely confident, but at the same time full of anguish, uncertainty in its lyrics. The tracks are up to 90% of their length sung, the instrumentation is rather sparse, even a bit basic and mostly acoustic, but there is not one shadow of a doubt that we are in the Hammill planet realm.

Certainly a beautiful album, with its all too personal songs (even if they are sometimes easy to relate to), this is an album I would recommend only to Hammill aficionados but not to the casual VdGG fan, expecting some of that group's remnants.