PATIENCE

Inevitably, even a out-of-norm personage such as Hammill cannot fully escape the times in which he was writing and recording his album; and as you might guess, the 80's were not the best of time for prog and even for Hammill. But undaunted by these consideration Hammill kept pounding away at his piano, writing very personal songs and churning out albums at an incredible pace. This furious pace of release gives unfortunately some rather poorer results in the quality of his songwriting. One cannot escape the thought that he actually wrote every thought he had and then released them as songs in his albums >> but if that were the case, I think this man was simply never mediocre. This means that there is a great disparity in between his songs and therefore not one album past his VdGG days is great due to the song distribution, but aside from one release, he never made real poor albums either. Among all of the artistes (prog or not), I am convinced that Hammill never actually wrote a "filler" track.

Still with the help of old Graaf members, Hammill unleashes in the early 80's with a load of albums that are not always interesting for those that fail to adore the character. Among the tracks that give the time of the century are Film Noir, Jeunesse Dorée, No More Than Ever >> sometimes approaching a sombre Talking Heads. To resume this album to an 80's album only would be a little reductive, as some tracks are quite impressive - the closer Patient, Traintime and the solemn Just Good Friends - and could all belong to Silent Corner.

This is particular to Hammill : to set aside an album of his is always difficult, because there are always a few tracks which are worthy of keeping , but to invest in an album such as this one for just two or three tracks which would fit on a great album. This prompting me to say that if peter only released one album out of every two, this man would have a fabulous discography.