THE LEAST WE CAN DO IS WAVE TO EACH OTHER

Van der Graaf Generator is one of those bands that can really blow you away or can send nothing at all inspiring your way. I love the band, don't get me wrong, but there is very little in the way of spectacular on this album. All in all, it's pretty good, and solid enough, but not a good place to start, and not as powerful as their later stuff will turn out to be. Refugees is worth the price of the album alone, being a very nice little ditty about, well, refugees. The music is pretty soft, but with a beautifully awkward middle section that makes me smile every time. White Hammer is, for the most part, average, except for the vicious outro. I checked the booklet about five times to make sure that, no, that is not Robert Fripp cranking out that wickedly distorted guitar. A sick riff from well before sick riffs really were all that cool. Top it off with a wild, almost atonal saxophone solo, and you have the highlights of the album. The rest is alright, simply average at best.

All told, it comes to a middling rating, despite some good songs. Van der Graaf get much more exciting after this record, though.