I've never subscribed to the "heard one progrock band and you've heard them all" sentiment, but there's a sizeable grain of truth rattling about in that aphorism.
And it's a somewhat tired observation that if you've heard Pink Floyd, you've also heard Pendragon.
Nevertheless, it was a relief and a delight when '
Pure's 14 minute opening track,
'Indigo' revealed itself to be a gritty, hard edged, soft centred chunk of sturdily melodic contemporary progressive rock. Yeah, all of that, and more.
Karl (Threshold) Groom's production is outstanding, bringing to the album the power and imagination of acknowledged mixing desk masters like
Trevor Rabin and Bob Ezrin. '
Pure' is rock solid, sonically, peppered with haunting effects, pensive guitars and is full to bursting with busy, inventive arrangements. And it's heavy, man.
And ironically, the album is already being condemned for being too, er, progressive.
Nothing to follow quite matches up with that impressive opener, but several tracks come tantalisingly close, and arguably '
Pure's success as an album is the way in which it accumulates lots of well defined musical detail, giving it weight and authority. At first listen you kind of realise all the pieces are there, but it takes a while to see the bigger picture.
Mainman - vocalist&guitarist - Nick Barrett's songs draw blood with razor sharp metaphors, often bleak but always human, cleverly broken up by melodic, muscular guitar and keyboard passages, set against a busy, but never intrusive background of whitenoise and special FX.
'
Comatose - View From The Seashore' is a fascinating, satisfying journey through the many facets - if closely related - of progrock. One moment grandiose, slow moving, the next intense, dark, hard hitting.
Closing cut, '
The Freak Show' is the heaviest and most immediate track on the album. A relentless riff, soaring synth lines and radiant bursts of axework provide the foundation. Barrett's lyrical melancholy - brooding, pulsing - provides the angst that fuels the song. Altogether, a shining (if that's the right word) example of the band's new found confidence in diversity, and is a suitably apposite closer.
One small complaint - the tracklisting on the rear cover is wrong.
The tracklisting in our sidebar shows the correct sequence.
Written by
Brian Tuesday, March 10, 2009
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