Trollheart

Album Title: Pawn hearts
Artist: Van der Graaf Generator
Nationality: British
Year: 1971
Subgenre: Classic Prog?
Player(s): Peter Hammill (Guitars, Pianos and Vocals), Hugh Banton (Keyboards, Bass), Guy Evans (Drums), David Jackson (Sax and flute) --- with guest appearance from Robert Fripp on guitar
Familiarity: I bought all of VdGG's albums in a spree after hearing one of their collections. I've yet to hear them all but I know this album very well. One of the real old classic prog bands who kind of started it all. Originals, in every sense of the word.
Favourite track(s): "A plague of lighthouse keepers"
Why? It's hard to choose when you have only three tracks, but for such a long piece this never bored me and I think it's constructed incredibly well. Plus it really showcases Hammill's amazing vocal range, and wouyld be the template for many an epic, from “Supper's ready” to “Cygnus x-1” in the future.
Least favourite track(s): None really but I'll choose “Lemmings (Including, it goes without saying, “Cog”!)"
Why?Merely because the second two tracks are totally amazing and though I do like this I don't love it as much as the other two. As an opener it's just a little weak I feel, but I still like it.
Any preconceptions prior to listening, whether good or bad? No. I know this album very well indeed and was looking forward to revisiting it again.
Factoids you'd like to share? The album title was a slip of the tongue resulting in an inadvertent Spoonerism, when “horn parts” got turned around to “porn hearts” and thence to Pawn Hearts. I did not know that. Thanks Wiki. Also, this album reached number 1 in Italia, probably Van der Graaf's biggest ever success anywhere.
End impression: An album that never really dates, and stands as a real classic within, and template for, the burgeoning progressive rock scene, and which influenced countless artistes down the years.
Comments: How do you market an album with only three tracks? Well, back in 1971 you had a lot of prog rock bands coming through with big epics --- Caravan, Yes, Pink Floyd --- so it wasn't as unusual as it would be today. That said, even “Meddle” had more than three tracks so this could be seen as something of a gamble, but than, Van der Graaf were never a band concerned with singles, chart success or indeed any success. And they weren't that successful. But they left behind a blueprint that has been followed, in one way or the other, by almost every prog band that has come after them, and others in different genres too.

I can't say for certain, but I believe Peter Hammill may have been the first singer to exhibit such a range of different styles, so many what I would call separate musical identities. One moment he can be singing softly at piano, the next he's raving like a loon, then he's snarling in anger and then quiet and soft again. You can clearly see where both Gabriel and Fish gained their inspiration, and the man was and is a total vocal powerhouse. VdGG would not have been the same without him.

The juxtapositioning of the soft piano melody and almost lullaby vocal on “Man-erg” (no, I don't know what it means, unless it's a corruption of “manage”?) with the subject matter --- “A killer lives inside of me...” is just amazing and takes my breath away every time. And “A plague of lighthouse keepers” is one of the most ambitious compositions I have ever heard in my life, mixing elements of rock, classical, jazz, funk even into an overarching story which appears to be about a man facing the last nights of his life (?) --- I can see now where Sean Filkins got his inspiration for “Epitaph for a mariner” --- which after all the changes, bumps and humps, screams and cries at the firmament for justice and explanation, ends in a slow, gentle acceptance and a quiet drifting off to the afterlife. Unless I got that totally wrong. But that's what it says to me and the lyric seems to back it up somewhat.

Either way, you have to look on this album as almost a progenitor of so many other classic prog albums since, and Van der Graaf as the weatherbeaten and experienced grandfathers of so much that we enjoy today in progressive rock. A superb album: may be their best, I don't know. As I said I have only heard a few, but without doubt their most successful and influential, and without it we might not have classics like “Close to the edge”, “Foxtrot” or even “Script for a jester's tear.”

Rating: Even with “Lemmings (including “Cog”)” being just that little weaker than the rest of the album I still have no hesitation in awarding this the rank of a masterpiece, which it is. So my rating for this album is 5.0

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018