PAWN HEARTS

I still remember the thrill of hearing this the first time. I went through quite a bit of emotional turmoil in my early 20's, and I related to the lyrical content immediatley. I had only previously heard the song "Killers" on a prog compilation, but looked up info on the band on the strength of that track alone. This album was consistently referenced as their best, and I can not agree more. The only thing that took a little getting used to was Hammills voice, and I have come to consider it one of the best in prog. He may not have the range of Jon Anderson, or the smoothness of Greg Lake, but his singing drips with emotion and drama which is something I tend to enjoy in prog rock. Perhaps it is accurate to say that their is some immaturity in the lyrics and song writing, but it was 1971 after all and this band was breaking ground that no one had before, and aside from Crimson, no one really has done anything quite like this since. For me, a true masterpiece of progressive rock (and I very rarely rate higher than 4 stars).

(one gripe I have is that the latest remaster sounds, to my ears, even worse than the original CD release that I have.........the drum sound being the only thing that sounds somewhat better.......not sure what happened with the original production of this album, but all of the others sound much better, even in their original CD releases.....so I assume they did the best they could with what they had to work with when remastering....still a dissapointment though in terms of sound quality)