Originally Posted by Scott Bails
This album was my first real encounter with Pendragon. I still love its melodic qualities and its freshness. The Voyager may be my favorite Pendragon song. Gorgeous melodies.
At the time of release, I thought the artwork was quite cheesy (I find it even more cheesy now). But it somehow resonated with the kind of naive charm this music had. I felt Marillion were more mature but this era of Pendragon had its own magic.
thought it was river bank, just...
since then, I've found out that when you see mushrooms on the cover, that equates to groundbreaking music (Leprous, TRAM...). Last Pendragon album (...Mountains...) is a big let down IMHO. All that melody is lost along the way.It seems that the Dutch fans are cranks.
In my opinion, Simon Williams made a fantastic job with The World. Definitely, one of the most beautiful front covers I've ever seen in prog genre for the last 25 years. And I love every picture which Simon brought to Pendragon's history (incl. 1991 - 2001 period).
I still haven't bought the latest one. Passion was a disappointment to me because I felt it lacked melody. I'm still on the fence and your post leads me to be even more cautious.
Just to be clear -- there isn't a label that says that on the jewel case. THAT would be funny!
I've never really thought that of Pendragon though. They sometimes have aspects of Marillion and Floyd, but overall they remind me of Camel more than any other band.
That's the nice thing about neo-prog: it can make you feel like a 12-year-old girl again.
I still have a fondness for "The Last Waltz." The rest of the album isn't bad, and it WAS my introduction to this band, but "Not of this World" and "Pure" have both outshone it in my opinion.
"Arf." -- Frank Zappa, "Beauty Knows No Pain" (live version)
Barrett melodic soloing sometimes resembles Latimers, but unlike Andy he also uses mean tone to great effect. That gritty edge is very distinctive, especially when paired with Scott's big drums. Nick also pulls off quite a few "fast fingers" moments. Overall Pendragon sound a lot more modern with all those samples etc (on newer albums tho). And the shear number of different guitar tones blows Camel out the water. Am listening to that raplike part of Empathy as we speak. Awesome... very unique.Just to be clear -- there isn't a label that says that on the jewel case. THAT would be funny!
I've never really thought that of Pendragon though. They sometimes have aspects of Marillion and Floyd, but overall they remind me of Camel more than any other band.
Still think Kowtow is their best album. Agree on the cover ...
Some of us spent A LOT of money to forget that feeling...
As for the album at hand, I never enjoyed it as much as The Jewel. I never cared for Pendragon beyond their 80s output.
"Corn Flakes pissed in. You ranted. Mission accomplished. Thread closed."
-Cozy 3:16-
Same here although I did see them live once(at Rosfest in 07) and they were really fantastic live. I'd say they were possibly the best band I ever saw where I didn't know a note before seeing them(La Maschera di Cera and Gosta Berlings Saga would be up there in that list too). That's really saying something too because I have seen lots of bands where I didn't know their material. The funny thing is I could have checked them out a long time ago because I knew about them(and IQ too for that matter)back in the early nineties or so but for some reason just never bought anything by them. I finally did hear IQ back in the late 90's.I've never checked Pendragon out - the "Fish-era Marillion imitator" label always scared me off. Seems like this one might be a nice place to start.
But wow, that is one awful album cover. A unicorn?? Really??
As a side note in my head I was saying their name as pen druh gone instead of pen dragon until I spoke to a prog vendor on the phone around 1993 or 94 who was saying it as pen dragon. I've heard it as pen dragon enough times since then to know that's probably the preferred way of saying their name.
As for the album cover I don't think it's any worse than Marillion's album covers. I think Deyss' album covers are worse than this one.
Last edited by Digital_Man; 03-26-2015 at 09:28 PM.
It's one of the worst covers I've ever seen - looks like some unholy mash-up of Lucky Charms, Legend, Free Willy and a snow globe. If I ever owned that album and left it out, I'd deserve each and every hour of hysterical laughter that it generated.
Bought their debut miniLP Fly High Fall Far upon release. Kept it for two days... Never returned to this band.
LOL I can definitely see Lucky Charms .
They got better after that.
Here's another picture of the character from the top of the cover:
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