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Shhh! I speak softly because my soul has fallen asleep. She would not allow me to talk about this album. My soul not only doesn't want me to talk about it, she doesn't even want me to listen to it. When I hear it and when I talk about it, she suffers, she almost aches. Too many memories, too much melancholy, too many affections and too many feelings, are tied to this album and they are memories that have a specific name, a specific face, which is why they hurt. As long as she sleeps I have that bit of detachment and cynicism, which will allow me to talk about it.
Moreover, for the album, this is the most correct and reverent approach. It should be treated with velvet gloves: its power is intrinsic to its delicacy, it is strong because it is recounted with a light touch and manages to reach deep within because its truth, though unequivocal, is just whispered.
Hammill narrates of Alice, who is obviously not Carroll's, but in that mirror game he is accustomed to, there are parallels into which everything can fit. Alice (The Red) has left, after seven years and what remains is only the ability to talk about it, freely, intensely, without metaphors, without lies, word for word what happened and what the soul needs to expel "Alice (Letting Go)", sometimes even as if nothing had happened and old age, with children out of the house, is a reality that the future will see, sadly realized "Autumn".
Musically the work is more accessible and direct than previously produced, especially if we consider that the previous album "Nadir's Big Chance" is seen by many as the (musical) origin of punk. The spirit of a more intimate and melodramatic Hammill is often carried by the guitar alone or the piano alone, but there are also group or more orchestral moments, precisely because melancholy and a tortured violin know how to get along like few others.
Hammill's voice reaches moments of unparalleled intensity, it manages to make us delve into the deepest abysses of his spirituality and make us suffer with him, moving us with his own emotion.
The climax of the album and perhaps of his entire musical life, thematic expressiveness, communicative ability and Hammill's inner strength is "(This Side Of) The Looking Glass", there is no compendium equal to this, nothing is so saturating, enchanting and bursting with drama. The love drama, of loneliness in the absence of someone too loved. Where too much becomes too painful and pain becomes suffering and suffering remains the only anchor for those left on this side of the mirror, after Alice found the passage to go beyond, without leaving a way to hold her back.
"I am lost, I am silenced, I am blind - I am drunk with sadness, drowned by madness - the wave engulfs me, the mirror repels me - the echo of your laughter crosses the mirror - and I am alone - no friendship, no comfort, no future, no home - the past freezes inside me."
Every mood is extraordinarily palpable, the tragedy takes form, to tell us how it is at the same time easy and difficult to expose oneself, even when every nerve is uncovered and thus fragile.
The closure with "Lost And Found" leaves a glimmer. Obviously among the lost objects is Hammill himself, perhaps he can be found again, or maybe taken by someone else.
"Put your red dress on baby, 'cause we're going out - put your high heel shoes on, tonight everything might turn out alright?"
Hammill's most bitter and tormented album. An album for certain moments, those moments not everyone can afford.
Hush, my soul is about to awaken, it's better if I end here.
(Peter Hammill - Over - April 1976) Sioulette
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
02 Autumn (04:15)
So here we are, alone -
our children have grown up and moved away.
living their own lives, they say...
it all seems very strange to me.
I don't understand their ways:
our children amaze me all the time
and I often wonder why they make me feel
so sad and suddenly old.
Now we're left with an empty home,
from our nest all the birds have flown for foreign skies.
We're discarded, of no further use,
though we gave our kids all our youth and all our lives -
we really tried.
Now there's only my wife and me;
we used to have a family - now that's gone
and only memories linger on...
it all seems very wrong to me.
To our sorrows they were quite deaf
and as soon as they could they left us to our tears.
We always tried to teach what was good -
yes, we gave our kids all we could through all the years.
So here we are at last;
the time has gone so fast and so have my dreams.
I simply don't know what it all means,
this pointless passage through the night,
this autumn-time, this walk upon the water....
I wonder how long
it will be till this song
is sung by our own sons and daughters?
06 Betrayed (04:44)
When I began I was full of altruistic dreams,
believed in princes and princesses, kings and queens -
now I find they're all human inside,
all bitterness and pride,
so why shouldn't I be like that too?
It seems that I've forgotten all I tried so hard to learn;
it seems there's not an ounce of love or trust
anywhere in the world.
Friends - they're all harbouring knives
to embed in your back out of revenge, or spite,
or indifference, or lack of other things to do -
in the end just who's going to be a friend for you
when they kick you in the guts just as your hand holds out the pearl?
It seems that there is nothing left but
hatred and lust in the world.
I don't give a damn anymore - I've only wound up betrayed.
It's all been absolutely worthless -
all the efforts I've made to be gentle and kind
are repaid with contempt,
degraded by sympathy and worthless kindness
and love that isn't meant.
I'm through with joy and company, I've done with pretty words,
betrayed - there's no hiding-place
anywhere in the world.
I've nothing left to fight for except making my passion heard -
I don't believe in anything
anywhere in the world.
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Other reviews
By pana
Over is the ultimate expression of the Manchester artist, a record that has always existed, waiting to find the right artist to crystallize it.
Listen to it, please.
By lucio lazzaruol
"Without conviction, there is no true art."
"The wound of love was, evidently, already healed..."
