H TO HE, WHO AM THE ONLY ONE

Though their next album, "Pawn Hearts", is my favorite VdGG album, this one is the one that I return most often too. With one of the greatest songs opening the album the music slips deeper into claustrophobic darkness as the album progresses, builiding on one main conceptual theme - isolation. The contrast between haunting beauty and madness is really remarkable here and creates a very unique mood to it all. The bleak and haunting mood of the music really relates to Peter Hammill's lyrics, making for an intense and subtly unnerving listening experience that is hugely rewarding in the end, something that the band continued doing (for an even more frightening effect) on their next album. This is done superbly on tracks like "Emperor in his War-Room" and the closing epic "Pioneers Over C." especially. This is definitely one of my favorite albums both musically and conceptually and should be listened to on headphones, alone in the middle of the night for best effect.

Highlights: The whole thing.