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.
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.
Still think Kowtow is their best album. Agree on the cover ...
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.
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.
Here's another picture of the character from the top of the cover:
Bookmarks