PAWN HEARTS

Pawn Hearts is the last album of the first phase of VDGG, it will be another 4 years before they reunite to make happen the for me best part of their excistense. But this is still a classic album from a great progressive band. Stylishly the first phase of the band comes close to bands like King Crimson, and later Itallian Prog artists like Banco and PFM (I guess VDGG was quite popular in Italy). The intrinsic sadness and dark atmosphere that VDGG express with their music may be a bit too much for some listeners, but I like it. This album is for sure the most difficult album to get into, so only approach if you already like H to He and/or other VDGG albums.

Lemmings is quite slower and less intense than generally espected, with a focus on slow developing melody's, Man-Erg starts slow also, with occasional heavier moments to shift the mood from depressing to slightly hopefull and back to darker pastures again. The albums quality is best represented with the final track. A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers a side long epic 10 part suite. Great vocals and a constant sense of something about to happen. And it does (just have to wait and listen in silent anticipation for it will come)

And once more VDGG has released a great album, it's not a masterpiece as such, certainly the difficulty in getting into the music stands in the way of such positioning, but for those who are willling to give an album time to sink in it is surely very rewarding. 4 stars for appeal, an additional half star for sheer ackomplishment.