H TO HE, WHO AM THE ONLY ONE

This is the record that introduced me to this band back when I was a teenager in the '80s. I remember thinking at the time that this is a really great band except for the singer and the lyrics. Peter Hammill is definitely an acquired taste and once you get it, there is no going back. But on this record, his style is still forming. This album has it's fair share of ridiculous lines like "You can't have two killers living in the same pad." or " A thousand mouths are filled with rusted metal. Your face a shade of green. Somehow you try to speak with all of that garbage in your mouth." and "We are the ones they're going to build a statue for ten centuries ago." And one more, "At night they steal your eye from its socket. And the ball hangs falling from your cheek." But someway and somehow it works and gives this album a spacey charm I can't quite explain. Killers kicks things off with a medium paced rocker of sorts with a narrator telling describing a sea monster living on the bottom of the sea that pretty much devours anything within it's reach causing it to live in solitude. This ends up being a metaphor for the narrators own mistakes on how he treats loved ones rendering himself alone.

House With No Door sounds to me like a prelude to "Man Erg" With Hammill struggling with sharing himself with others. This song is driven by Hammill's piano and Evan's drums. it also contains a really nice flute solo backed by sax.

Emporer in His War-Room, is basically about hateful war monging leaders and the prices they'll pay for their actions. here we have Robert Fripp making a nice appearance. Depite it's goofy lyrics, it's a good song.

Lost. here Hammill laments about a lost love amid a sprawling jazz-like atmosphere. Nice changes throughout. One of my favorite tunes.

Pioneers Over c. Lost in Space! And time and existence. Very Star Trekesque but alot of fun. Some far out sax interludes grace this one. H to He is most certainly of its time, nobody writes stuff like this anymore!