Pendragon
Believe

In the last four years, they had lingered, waiting for a tangible artistic inspiration. According to the band, "Believe" was supposed to be something more "modern" in sound. This is only partly true: it is clearly evident in "No Place For The Innocent" and "Wisdom Of Solomon", the first two songs after an instrumental intro that leaves me indifferent (I think it could have been thought of differently); and subsequently, we sense it in spurts, a bit here and a bit there in various tracks. But on one hand, if we leave the well-trodden paths of previous works, particularly "Not Of This World", where we found rarefied and nebulous atmospheres with a strong emotional impact, just wait a few minutes to return to listening to the early Pendragon repertoire. I still don’t see anything innovative. Nor do I discover great novelties in the following tracks, like the one I consider the most beautiful, which I was essentially looking for and expecting in this album, the second part of "The Wishing Well", "Sou' By Sou' West"; because here they bring us closer again to what was the past, unmistakably guiding us towards the progressive band theme in its most classic and well-known sense. The novelty lies, instead, in the more complete and skillful, as well as abundant, use of the guitar: classical, distorted electric, and synthesized, omnipresent, with solos of excellent craftsmanship by the always underrated Nick Barrett, the founder and voice of our band. And in putting the keyboards in the background, which now sound too much like the '80s and obsolete music.

Overall, the result is excellent for those who love and have followed them for a lifetime. I expected more, meaning a bolder and more convincing attempt to evolve their music and make it current, as IQ and Pallas have done, historical names of the genre.