Van Der Graaf Generator Pawn Hearts (1971)

From sputnikmusic.com

Review Summary: It’s one of the greatest masterpieces of the band and represents the peak of their career. This is one of the most heavy, insane and bizarre albums I’ve ever heard.

“Pawn Hearts” is the fourth studio album of Van Der Graaf Generator and was released in 1971. The line up on the album is Peter Hammill, Hugh Banton, David Jackson and Guy Evans. The album had also the participation of Robert Fripp on electric guitar.

Van Der Graaf Generator is one of those obscure groups that unfortunately only a very small and faithful bunch of fans and specialized critics in the progressive rock music, really heard something about. Even in the progressive rock world, Van Der Graaf Generator is one of those bands that fans don’t speak constantly about. However, many references to Van Der Graaf Generator’s music can be found in a lot of other works from so many different groups. The albums from the group have tended to be, both lyrically and musically, darker in atmosphere than many of their progressive rock pairs. About “Pawn Hearts”, we can say that it represents certainly the crowning achievement of the group. It’s majestic, complex and often times psychotic, capturing in the entire perfection the group’s very own musical world. If we have to describe “Pawn Hearts” we can say that it sounds more like music that was composed and performed by a genius locked in an insane asylum. This is really a very unique and special album, even inside the band’s discography.

“Pawn Hearts” is Van Der Graaf Generator’s most complex and challenging album. The track listing consists of just three titles, two ten minutes long suites on the first side “Lemmings (Including Cog)” and “Man-Erg” and a twenty-three minutes long suite on the second one “A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers”, further subdivided into ten different subsections, a trick used later by Genesis on “Supper’s Ready”. These three long tracks on the album are all stuffed with the typical Hammill-sounding melodies and themes relieved by a progressive, complex and disharmonic energy of a kind that will leave you breathless. Personally, I think these variations between structured melodic themes to ugly, noisy and disharmonic parts, often places the music of Van Der Graaf Generator in the same vein as King Crimson but, of course, with a sound totally of their own. So, may not be really a great surprise the presence of Fripp on this album.

“Lemmings (Including Cog)” contains lyrically some of the most uplifting, revelatory and extraordinary messages in rock music, descrying the incessant hopelessness of society. By calling for the preservation of human livelihood, the song rails against the collective suicidal tendencies of the human race. Musically, it begins with an acoustic guitar, which is soon joined by a gradually increasing of music. The song progresses in a true fashion through entirely before ending on an almost unfinished note. This is a great track with a very deep and complex content, both lyrically and musically. “Man-Erg” is no less complex and it also deals with insanity.

The character questions who he really is, and he contemplates the differences in men, which ultimately leads to his realization that in all men is the same, regardless of what an individual man might stand for or has accomplished. In other words, a man is just a man. Musically, this is another gorgeous track with soulful vocal deliverance by Hammill. Jackson also shines on this song. His saxophone accompaniment enhances the composition in a unique and extraordinary fashion. This is another excellent track. “A Plague Of Lightouse Keepers” is a musical suite divided into ten parts and represents the epic track of the album. Lyrically, it’s about the lighthouse keeper’s loneliness that slowly leads to their eventual insanity. The imagery and terror of this track far transcends the normal rock lyrics, and the lyrics would seem more fitting as an Edgar Allen Poe’s poem. Musically, it’s an amazing track that is all over the map and features some great performances from all involved, including Fripp who ends the track with a really outstanding and beautiful guitar solo. This track is musically and lyrically a masterpiece and is mainly dominated by Hammill’s lyrics and vocals and the saxophones of Jackson.

Conclusion: “Pawn Hearts” is the most complex and challenging album from Van Der Graaf Generator. This album has all and is a perfect work, if you’re already a progressive rock fan. The three long tracks are all stuffed with the typical band’s sounding melodies and themes, relieved by a progressive, complex and disharmonic energy of a kind that will leave you breathless. It has incredible dense lyrics, extremely diversified instrumentation and great dark overtones. It’s rather curious, but this is one of the heaviest albums I ever listened to, and yet, it has nothing to do with metal. It’s just so dark and insane that it has an extremely heavy feel to it, and it will burn up your ears, if you aren’t ready for it. Sincerely, I really think that “Pawn Hearts” is simply one of the best albums ever made in any musical genre. Which is most interesting, bizarre and dramatic is that with “Pawn Hearts”, Van Der Graaf Generator has reached their peak artistically, although financially they were broken and they needed to split during a couple of years, for the first time.

Van Der Graaf Generator Pawn Hearts (1971)

From amazon.com

Released in 1971, this album is regarded by many fans as the finest material VDGG ever recorded. I certainly share this enthusiasm and Pawn Hearts ranks right up there with my top ten prog albums of all time. Ever. This is difficult listening however, and themes of despair and paranoia abound, which are wonderfully brought to life in all of their twisted glory with Peter Hamill’s anguished lyrics.

The members of the band at this point included the classic VDGG lineup: Hugh Banton (Hammond E&C organs, Farfisa professional organ, piano, mellotron, ARP synthesizer, bass pedals, bass guitar, and vocals); Peter Hammill (lead vocals, acoustic and slide guitar, electric piano, and acoustic piano); superb drummer Guy Evans; and David Jackson (flute, tenor/alto/soprano saxophones). All of the musicians are very good with Guy being an exceptional drummer – just like all of the other remastered VDGG albums, the subtle intricacies of his drumming really come across. The ensemble work is also pretty good too. Before I forget, Robert Fripp (of King Crimson) contributed a tiny bit of electric guitar here and there – it’s barely noticeable though.

Now for my favourite part – the music. The album is comprised of two longer pieces (11’39” and 10’22”) with the massive 23’05 multimovement suite A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers as the centrepiece. The music is, for the most part, harsh and unyielding with only the briefest moments of reprieve. Hugh’s alternately twisted and churchy organ work really drives each piece along, with Dave’s angular and jagged sax work slashing through each piece like so many shards of broken glass. OK, maybe that last bit is a little over the top, but it is not far from the truth. Although the music is very heavy, there are a few quieter and haunting moments. The introduction to Man Erg comes to mind as the best example, although those moments (albeit fleeting moments) are pretty much scattered across the album. Last but not least, is Peter Hammill’s incredible and very distinctive vocal delivery. He had developed a vocal style over the course of three albums that ranged from a heavy metal rasp to a high pitched falsetto “choir boy” vocal style and it is brought to perfection on this album. He also screams/rants during certain frenzied passages on the feverish closing track, A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers. Although some people feel that his vocal style is overly theatrical I have to admit that I absolutely love it – In fact, I am of the opinion that VDGG would not be VDGG without Peter Hammill.

The EMI remastered album is incredible and features restored cover art and band publicity photos/live shots along with an extraordinary improvement in the sound quality. The improvement is so great that it is like listening to a completely different recording – every nuance is brought out and you can even hear subtle synthesizer effects and percussion parts that had previously gone unheard. The liner notes include all of the lyrics along with a ton of informative liner notes. The bonus tracks are also really good too (well, maybe the dinner time jazz of Ponker’s Theme is not so great) and are outtakes from the 1971 Pawn Hearts sessions. I think that of all the bonus tracks, Diminutions is the most interesting because it is so unlike VDGG. It is very spacey and consists simply of long, drawn out passages on synthesizers and organ over a period of six minutes or so – in fact it sounds more like electronic artists such as Tangerine Dream or Klaus Schulze.

Well I have gushed over this incredible album long enough, although I could easily go on for another 20 pages. Suffice it to say that this is VDGG’s finest recorded moment and is very highly recommended along with H to He, He who am the Only One (1970) and Still Life (1976).

One more thing – this was the last album VDGG released before regrouping and releasing Godbluff in 1975.

Van Der Graaf Generator – Pawn Hearts (1971)

From johnmcferrinmusicreviews.org

They blew it. They made their major artistic breakthrough with H to He, got greedy, went for the universalist jugular, and absolutely blew it. There are three songs, none of which are even as good as “The Emperor in His War Room.” The production has gone back to suck – it’s not the same suck as on Least, but Peter’s magnificent voice is once more relegated to a supporting role instead of receiving the starring role it deserves. None of the riffs are anywhere as magnificent as those in “Killer” or “Pioneers,” none of the vocal parts are as beautiful as those in “Lost” or “House with no Door,” almost none of the instrumental parts approach the brilliance of those in “Killer” … what a disappointment.
That said, I do not want to give the impression that the album is worthless, because that’s simply not what I think. You see, each of these three tracks has something I like a lot, and to be perfectly honest, on some days I like this album slightly more than I do Least (even if it gets a lower grade here). It’s just that built around these ideas is a whole ton of material that simply irritates the hell out of me. Many repeated listens (I’ve definitely listened to this album more times than I have any other album with a comparable or worse grade) have brought the positive features clearly to the forefront of my mind, and I’ve always liked a few parts of the suite that makes up side two, but certain parts have only gotten worse and worse for me as the number of listens I’ve given this has gone up.

At first, track number one, entitled “Lemmings,” actually gets the album off to a fairly promising start. The “soft” vocal melody that Peter sings is quite cute, and I particularly enjoy it because the little spike up in the middle of each repetition easily brings to mind the image of little lemmings jumping up off a cliff and then tumbling to their dooms. The harder riff, with a vocal melody sung in unison, is also intriguing – I’m bugged by the echo on Peter’s voice, but the riff is very interesting, and Peter really sounds majestic as he sings lines like “We have looked upon the high kings.” Of course, every time he breaks the vocal melody from mirroring the riff, he starts to fall back into declamation instead of a singing mode, but still, it’s tolerable. Unfortunately, while the track works until about 3:20, the remaining eight minutes of the piece make it very difficult for me to stay focused, and don’t forget, I can keep my mind laser focused while listening to Yes’ “The Remembering.” The noodling just keeps going and going, Peter occasionally reprises the beginning vocal melodies but mostly just mirrors the jamming, and basically the sound loses all of its apocalyptic tension by making itself so freakin’ low key and boring (well, except for a fairly brief passage where the band goes into an extremely angry-sounding bit). I mean, I really don’t see how I can keep myself from falling asleep during the last minute of quiet sax/keyboard noodling.

Up next is “Man-Erg,” which starts out as a piano-ballad in the vein of “House with No Door,” but while the atmosphere is quite nice, Peter has trouble here matching the majestic approach of his singing with an equally resonant and memorable vocal melody, and that hurts quite a bit. The sound is nice, but it’s getting mushy again, which I’d hoped they fixed once and for all with H to He. The “I’m just a man …” section, reprised several times, has some strong emotional power, and would have worked well as an actual climax, but it feels rushed to me, without enough buildup to make it work as any kind of real climax. Anyway, the song also features a fairly cool mid-section with some fierce sax/organ jamming, along with some solid Fripp guitar lines. Peter’s singing sounds especially dumb during this part, but while the instrumental parts kinda veer towards the pointlessness that bugged me so on Least, they’re also very fast in parts, so whatever. Of course, Peter comes back and starts singing another soft part, this time using cliches like “acolytes of doom,” and it doesn’t do much to raise my opinion of the track too much. Concluding with the initial melody, along with the mid-section popping up amidst it from time to time, does give the track a nice epic sweep, but when the individual parts don’t impress me that much, it shouldn’t be difficult to guess that I’m not totally thrilled.

And then there’s “A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers,” which those who hate the band often use as Exhibit 1 of why they hate it so. Strangely enough, though, I’ve actually come to enjoy several parts of it, though I doubt I’ll ever go sufficiently loony to consider it the peak of VDGG, like many fans do. The general gist of the piece, best as I can tell, is that it’s about a lighthouse keeper going nuts from a combination of loneliness and all of the ghosts, real and imagined, that are are inherent to the mythology of sea travel. He goes batty, jumps into the sea to kill himself and escape the madness, and muses over various philosophical things. Fine, decent concept, whatever. What does matter to me, though, is that there a few parts that I enjoy a great deal, even though I consider the suite as a whole to be a moderate failure. I actually think the opening “Eyewitness” section is incredible, combining decent lyrics with an eerie vocal melody and a gloomy atmosphere that sets the lighthouse backdrop well. Furthermore, the lyrics also do a fine job of establishing the gradual paranoia of the protagonist – I particularly like the line, “When you see the skeletons of sailing-ship spars sinking low You’ll begin to wonder if the points of all the ancient myths are solemnly directed straight at you…” I don’t even mind the occasional dissonant backing harmonies as Peter sings the melody – they do a good job of depicting the various ghosts fluttering around.

So that’s part one. Alas, the next couple of minutes, entitled “Pictures/Lighthouse,” are devoted to a bunch of “atmospheric” blaring sax noises over blaring keyboard noises, followed by some atmospheric organ chords. Enough said. Part three is a reprise of part one melodywise (and thus is also called Eyewitness), and depicts the protagonist reaching the very edge of his sanity. Just as it seems things are starting to get obnoxiously repetitive, we enter section four, “S.H.M.,” where images of sea spectres start assailing the protagonist’s mind. I actually find the lyrics here quite image-laden, despite the nonsense that appears at first glance when one glosses over a line like, “‘Unreal, unreal!’ ghost helmsmen scream and fall in through the sky, not breaking through my seagull shrieks … no breaks until I die: the spectres scratch on window-slits – hollowed faces, mindless grins only intent on destroying what they’ve lost.” Call me nuts, but it’s not difficult at all for me to imagine a nightmare to go with this passage; a bunch of translucent ghosts whirling all around me, screaming seeming nonsense, set upon my destruction solely because they themselves have been destroyed. So anyway, as the lyrics go on, the protagonist is leaning on the wall to support his wilting self, looking out upon the sea and seeing ghosts of ships long gone, crashed upon the rocks. Not bad so far.

Unfortunately, in part five, divided into “The Presence of the Night” and “Kosmos Tours,” the suite starts to come unraveled. The first part works nicely, a quiet reprise of the S.H.M melody with appropriately epilogue-ish lyrics, and the later sorta-jazzy melody that comes up after some noodling is amusing (though the hooks aren’t very sharp), but then the rest of the part goes into a bit of self-parody. Hammill’s screams go with a melody that really strikes me as jerky discord for its own sake, a bit of a vocal freakout for no good reason other than having a bit of a vocal freakout. It ends with the hero jumping out of the lighthouse, presumably into the sea, but while I might have cared for his fate before, the detachment presented immediately before this managed to preemptively undo any resonance I might have had from this. And what’s with that random dissonant keyboard-layers part that pops up after that cold melody has finished? This sucks, Beavis.

The next section, “Custard’s Last Stand,” tries to be one of the band’s cathartic anthemic ballads, but the melody is so flaccid that it doesn’t warm or inspire me at all. Just Pete’s voice with lots of echo and not approaching the grandeur of “House with no Door.” Then we have “The Clot Thickens,” where everything just goes nuts – it’s actually fairly amusing, since it’s insane and twisted and weird beyond recall, but given that it uses an “ANNHILATION”-like trick when Peter sings “..one more haggard DROWNED MAN,” it’s not about to get a total free pass from me. Whatever.

At least the piece ends on a nice note. “Land’s End” and “We Go Now” actually base their majesty around a lovely piano chord sequence instead of seemingly random organ splurts, and despite the amount of crud I’ve just waded through to get here, I actually feel a twinge of catharsis listening to this. Plus, let’s be fair, the majestic guitar parts coming through the layered vocal and keyboard harmonies (as well as all the sputtering radio static, which works well as a symbol of the protagonist slowly slipping out of his life conciousness), had they come with a better overall piece, would be recognized as near the same level (though in a different way, since this is Robert Fripp and not Steve Hackett) of the brilliant instrumental passages at the tail-end of Genesis’ “Supper’s Ready.” Go Robert!

So there you go – a loooooooong review given that this is only gets a 7 from me. It’s just as I said in the band’s introduction – even the songs that are dreadfully flawed overall still have chunks of solid quality, and it takes a lot of effort and explanation to separate those chunks from the overall chaff. In any case, Hammill apparently decided he couldn’t do anything else with the band at that time, so they broke up for a few years. It’s just as well – I shudder to imagine how a 1972 followup would sound.