Van Der Graaf Generator

So, is this review of "Pawn Hearts" finally happening? Alright, here we go, it's late but my heart's in the right place, and I hope my thoughts are too. But what do I write now? A masterpiece of prog, a milestone, Banton's organ, Jackson's sax, Hammill's voice, and so on and so forth... I turn the cover over in my hands while listening to it again on my Walkman. I remember when I bought it. It must have been 1982 or 1983. I'd been told they were "kind of like Genesis". What nonsense. The cover, with those suspended, encapsulated figures like alien witnesses to the flow of History, has always struck me. Figures from a parallel world where human affairs converge into the implosion of time, up to a point where dialectics cancel themselves out. For me, the album always started with the suite "A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers", intended as the second side. I remember perfectly the feeling of that first listen. It was clearly a powerful one. I loved Genesis, and still do, but there was something different here. Something alien, like the cover. Something that came from an emotional universe in the throes of detonation, something that came from a hidden corner of art's emotional possibilities. Many people, myself included perhaps, might find these words overblown, but that's what I felt back then, and, in some infinitesimal way, what I still feel on the five-hundredth listen.

Already the opening chords, those few seconds before Hammill's voice comes in to tell "A Plague", have something unsettling and estranging about them; in a sense, those few seconds contain the whole record within themselves. "I'm still waiting for my saviour, the storms are tearing my limbs apart... I'm a lonely man, my loneliness is real, my eyes have borne naked witness and now my nights are numbered..." I've always found the opening melody beautiful and unforgettable, and the sax and keyboard parts, which keep you holding your breath throughout the track, wonderfully precious and original. "I prophesy disaster, and then I count the cost..." The sirens of a ship. The fascination also lies in the tragic sense of narrative, in the furious digressions and melodic openings that alternate with one another, in the anguished stillness, in the looming tragedy, in the lyrical, theatrical thrashing of Hammill's voice. "Alone, alone, all the ghosts are calling... The only life I can feel is the presence of the night"; the sax counterpoints from a distance, the Hammond turns wearily, resignedly. "Could you hear my last words... Instead I die, slowest alone." There was a time I didn't much care for these furious, obsessive parts. There was a time I wrote that this was anticipating new wave. Now these parts strike me as essential to the whole. "The lighthouses might hold the key, but how can I reach the door?" - when Hammill unfolds these melodic piano passages, it still moves me. "Where is the god who guides my hand...", a distorted, grotesque fury, the mellotron opens up boundlessly, gone mad in the dark; "the oceans open, I am dragged into the spell... fields of pomp and majesty, what is free will? What is my place in the ceremony, whose is my voice? All things are separate, all things are one part." A majestic finale, the whole sonic universe of the piece exploding in an apocalyptic triumph. With Fripp on guitar. At least, to me it's Fripp - I remember having a little argument with a friend about it. A tremendous track, not the most beautiful, but the most thrilling in all of progressive rock.

But let's start from the beginning, that is, from "Lemmings", a track underrated by some; here Jackson and Banton achieve a stunning cohesion in accompanying the vocals, razor-sharp throughout. "Lemmings" also benefits from the interweaving of complex, highly original melodic lines, with a rise and fall between aggressive and melodic passages that leaves you breathless. I do remember, though, that my appreciation for this track came late, the product of more mature listening; for years I preferred "Man-Erg", because of that piano introduction. A far more singable track, with tremendous impact. Gorgeous. "The killer lives inside me, I can feel him move... The angels live inside me, I can feel them smile..." The middle section used to bother me a little, with that neurotic, dissonant, obsessive march and that snarling vocal. But after countless listens it remains a beautiful track, of a strange tenderness. Melodically, perhaps the most beautiful piece Hammill ever wrote. End of the CD. From late it's become very late. The usual narcissistic review, but I've behaved myself for a while, so maybe I'll be forgiven once again. Deep down, you already knew "Pawn Hearts" was a masterpiece.

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13/11/2006