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Pendragon - Love Over Fear CD (album) cover

LOVE OVER FEAR

Pendragon

 

Neo-Prog

4.08 | 403 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

dougmcauliffe
3 stars I saw this album getting love from many respected collaborators, it currently is not on streaming services so I decided to pull the plug and buy the CD. This was my introduction to Pendragon and I really had no idea what to expect. Overall, I was pleased.

The awesome cover art describes perfectly the type of mood this album delivers. Much of the music is very mellow and gives off this ethereal feel that just makes me think of being at the ocean. The Guitar work, both acoustic and electric is really strong and overflowing with great melodies. What I really love is how the guitar solos don't just come and go, but they continue to develop and become pretty epic at times. Fans of Camel will really get a kick out of it. There are several times throughout the album where the songs will strip down to just acoustic guitars and keys and these sections are dripping in atmosphere. I've gathered from other reviews that the driving force and front-man of the band is named Nick Barrett. He has a decent, kind of typical Neo Prog voice that sounds pleasant enough. I song I really in particular love is "Eternal Light." The way it develops is transcending, but I do have one minor gripe with it and that's some of the old-man lyrics in the lines "Turn off that TV set and read a book instead, read about the world and the universe, don't fill your snowflake head." I find lines like this to come off as out of touch and preachy. There's a few other cases where you get those lame "grrr phones bad, kids these days!" Type of lyrics and it's a bit off-putting to me as a younger listener personally. Perhaps I'm interpreting incorrectly or looking to deep into it, but generally, I'd say the lyrics are not the strong point of this album, but the guitar work tends to make up for it. Along with "Truth and Lies" this is my favorite track. There are some more shorter minimalist songs that are pretty good that work as a nice contrast to some of the longer and more proggy pieces. I think the album somewhat overstays is welcome and runs just a bit longer than i'd prefer. I also think some of the songs could have more grit and harder hitting passages, an overall pleasant and feel-good listen.

7/10

dougmcauliffe | 3/5 |

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