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Van Der Graaf Generator - H To He, Who Am The Only One CD (album) cover

H TO HE, WHO AM THE ONLY ONE

Van Der Graaf Generator

 

Eclectic Prog

4.32 | 1870 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

colorofmoney91
Prog Reviewer
3 stars He to He, Who Am the Only One was my first Van Der Graaf Generator album, chosen by what I thought to be interesting artwork. After listening to the album, I pretty much decided that VDGG was a band that sounds kind of goofy. Peter Hammill's voice is something that I continue to find extremely annoying, but the music here isn't entirely bad.

"Killer" starts with kind of a jazzy rock riff, but doesn't exactly sound strong and kind of reminds me of clown music. The song gets darker and more serious near the middle, and actually sounds cool and frantic. The following sax solo is equally frantic and is a nice touch to the initially goofy sounding track.

"House With No Door" is a soft piano based track with exceptionally annoying vocals. The instrumental portion of the track is very soothing, especially after the frantic previous track.

"The Emperor In His War Room" starts as a soothing and atmospheric track with beautiful flute playing, but eventually gets a little bit rockier. I find the track to be boring until just after halfway through, where a phat bass groove kicks in, but Hammill's voice ruins it for me.

"Lost" kicks off on a goofy note, being swift and quirky sounding with Hammill's clowny vocals and quick drumming. There is a rather dark instrumental passage featuring heavy guitar and some slightly avant sax that sounds entertaining and soon gives way to a softer passage. The second half of this track is more enjoyable and is noticeably jazzier and heavier, ridding itself of the goofy impression left by the introduction.

"Pioneers Over C." starts out sounding dark and captivating, but Hammill's vocals again quickly set this song on a goofy feel. The music goes through many changes, some jazzy, some more avant, and even a beautiful acoustic passage.

This honestly isn't a bad album, and the music is often quite pleasant and dark compared to a lot of progressive rock, but Peter Hammill's voice absolutely ruins the listening experience for me. He definitely has a love-it-or-hate-it kind of voice, and if you can get past it then you will find a terrific listening experience in this album.

colorofmoney91 | 3/5 |

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