THE LEAST WE CAN DO IS WAVE TO EACH OTHER

After the shy but beautiful debut album, psychedelic and acoustic, Van Der Graaf with Nic Potter on bass and Dave Jackson on sax and flute, they churn out a second album light years away from the first, and representing in my opinion one of the greatest rock albums (not only of progressive-rock) of all time. Everything on this album is exceptional: the beauty of the melodies, the complexity and quality of the musical score, the arrangement, the performance of the musicians and the singer, the lyrics, the variety and quantity of the musical material offered in only six songs.

The first, "Darkness", which opens with the roumors of the wind, is emblematic of a sound, a mood, an atmosphere: it is the emblem of Van Der Graaf's music: powerful, epic, threatening, gloomy, frightening, distressing, existential. There is no space here for the sounds and phony lyrics of King Crimson, Genesis, Yes contemporary albums. Van Der Graaf, namely Hammill, confronts the solitary and alienated existential condition of modern man. And so we hear a desperate voice hovering above the din of a distressing music where the bass infuses terror with its cadence, where the sound of the sax is excruciating, it is a scream that invokes hope. Hammill stages an expressionist theatrical music that reaches, with the synergy of musical instruments, voice and text, heights of pathos very high and unmistakable and unforgettable. Absolute masterpiece. Rating 9.5.

"Refugees" begins with a church organ that brushes a delicious, wonderful, hypnotic melody of those that enter your head and heart and leave you astonished, infleve into you enveloping you, imposing yourself, possessing you, to lead you to the heights of poignant, melancholy, elegiac beauty. Banton is the decisive element: in this song he uses three different keyboards (and Hammill plays the piano), creators of the melody, but fantastic is the orchestral arrangement with cello (Mike Hurwitz) equally important, and then the flute, bass and drums. Hammill's voice is sweet as it will hardly be yet in the future, but the piece also contains melodic and rhythmic changes that have the merit of not being pedantic and not dispersing the hypnosis of melody, which leads you to ever deeper melancholic emotions. Absolute masterpiece. Rating 9.5. I don't know if I know another album with the first two songs of such high quality, and of so complementary mood and pathos.

The third song, "White Hammer" brings the album back to normal: it is a great piece, which for many other artists would be the masterpiece but that here, in the presence of two songs worthy of entering the rock olympus, is just a small masterpiece. The song has a menacing incest as the first, but the arrangement is less condensed, leaving more space for keyboards and bass, which paint large spaces; in particular, it is the cornet (Gerry Salisbury) that give a martial sound to the song. But when Hammill's vocals come in and Guy Evans' drums, which has so far remained "quiet" (but they will become more and more overflowing in upcoming albums), explode, there is an excellent rhythmic progression, relentless, enthralling. Then there is the final tail, a stroke of genius, which makes the first side finish in a grandiose way, with a frightening sound. Rating 8.5.

What a first side! Listening to such a beauty raises the fear that the second part is not up to scratch.

The first song of the side B begins with a solo on Evans' drums, accompanied by Jackson's sax, which then leaves space for the vocals and guitar, first acoustic (Hammill) and then electric (very acidic, played by Potter). It returns to the climate of terror of the first facade but not so obsessive; in addition, here you can hear pieces played by the electric guitar and sung by choirs that seem to evoke a psychedelic atmosphere. Hammill continues to show off a very high-level expressionist singing, which makes him one of the greatest singers in the history of rock (again: not only of progressive rock). The instrumental moment sees acid guitar, Jackson and Evans do virtuosity, orgasm sound from terror, then end with Hammill, tender voice and acoustic guitar... and again ending with terror atmosphere with acidic sounds. We're at the fourth masterpiece on four songs. Rating 8.5/9.

The fifth song (Out of my Book") is prog-folk, dominated by organ and flute, with almost no drums (it doesn't beat on the snare), bucolic folk melody, vaguely acidic-folk. It serves to catch your breath from the terrifying and claustrophobic atmospheres heard so far: this song is sunny, airy, almost pastoral, evokes wide spaces, or perhaps gardens among the meadows, but always with a fundamental restlessness: the song is well riteed and the bass of Potter is always looming. It is the shortest track and, like the second of the first side, has the function of attenuating the terrifying mood of the songs alternating with a lighter and melodious one. These last two songs contain psychedelic reminiscences of the psychedelic reminiscences of the first album. This piece is good but not a masterpiece. Rating 7.5/8.

The last song, "After the Flood", opened and concluded with "This is the ending of the beginning", alternated with acoustic guitar and organ, has an unfolding verse-chorus, in which are interspersed pieces of instrumental jam that make it the first real mini-suite by VdGG and the more experimental song on the album, more progressive, in a certain sense... what sense? In the sense that it is the most elaborate, the longest, the one with the most instrumental variations on the theme, with changes of time and musical arrangement. But is that good? For a group capable of producing beautiful melodies and touching a huge pathos, arousing emotions, like VdGG, isn'nt always good, because it means hitting the listener more to the head than to the heart, with the risk of distracting him from fully enjoying the pathos that music can create. This song is the summa of VdGG's music, their manifesto, because it includes all the elements of their sound, of Hammill weltanschauung. Rating 9. In terms of music quality, there is just a slight drop in the second side.

Van Der Graaf with this record have already given all the best of their repertoire: lyrics and existentialist music, epic and terrifying atmosphere, flashes of beautiful melancholy melodies, arrangements that reach a cacophonous paroxysm, with saxophone excruciating and mighty bass, overflowing drums and organ to contain all this, theatrical singing, expressionist by Hammill. How can we do more? In the next two albums, Van Der Graaf, to do more, will focus on producing longer, more elaborate, more distressing songs, but what they will gain in cerebral and paroxysm, will lose in melody and immediacy. The pathos and theatrics will always remain very high, but more facing gloomy nightmare atmospheres.

Rating album: 10/10. Absolute masterpiece of rock music. Five Stars (If I could, I'd give six stars).