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Rating: I have always had a special relationship with Hammill's production post-‘Over’ and particularly with his '80s years. Understand me, as a Prog fanatic like myself, my first encounter with ‘The Future Now’ was not warmly welcomed by my untrained ears. After all, Hammill had understood that continuing the ideals of ‘Pawn Hearts’ in that distant 1978 would lead him to commercial ruin, or, as it was likely, since commercial success would not come to Hammill even with the post-punk/new wave turn, he simply felt the need to change and renew his modus operandi. As it should be, it took many listens to appreciate the sound experiments that started with ‘The Future Now’ and persisted for much of the following decade.
We gradually arrive at the album in question in 1983, the second released with the K Group and saxophonist David Jackson, former Van Der Graaf Generator member, as a guest. ‘Patience’ most likely marks the end of Hammill's most experimental phase, besides being, in my opinion, his best album of the '80s, after the monolith ‘A Black Box’ and the essential ‘And Close As This’. The album starts with one of the best songs: ‘Labour Of Love’, where Hammill’s voice appears rather sweet and warm, marked by a mid-tempo drumbeat and the presence of a rather unusual chorus consisting of a particularly menacing guitar riff. Notable are some rather pleasant and catchy rock pieces, where the percussion instruments are very powerful and prominent, while the voice is always appropriately gritty. Indeed, try to believe it, the more ‘easy listening’ and cunning melody of ‘Film Noir’ or the braver ‘Jeunesse d'Orée’. As a perfect counterpart to these songs, we find the sparse and cold ballad of ‘Just Good Friends’ and the acoustic ‘Comfortable?’. The latter would be a simple acoustic song, were it not for the continuous interruptions of thunderous drum blasts and the hypnotic pace. But the masterpiece of the album, and one of Hammill's best songs, comes at the end with ‘Patient’; supported by simple classical guitar chords, Hammill's voice twists and drags desperately trying to paint the sensations and torments of a sick man, but after about two minutes, the irreparable happens. Life seems now suspended by a thread, the curses are countless, with the patient waiting helplessly for the doctor. The rhythm drops again immediately, but the pain and awareness of an incurable ailment make the rest of the track a veritable triumph of emotions. Hammill’s voice here is simply monstrous, try to believe it!
Commercial success will not come even with this album, and the critics seem to have forgotten him; Hammill, for his part, will do even better three years later with the piano/voice masterpiece ‘And Close As This’.
4 stars, because with Peter Hammill I am generous!
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
05 Traintime (04:27)
Along the tracks the wires are humming
in bursts of code like far-off drums.
Fathering the message:
further up the line someone's shouting
down the passage of time.
The corridor restrains the window,
no view without the eye within.
Bold upon the threshold
but holding on the line
we're shouting down the passage of time.
Relatives speak on the phone, on the train,
talking before they have thought to explain;
voices pitched wildly on tracks in the night
can't pick the pace up...
oh let there be light!
How light becomes the soul.
You know yourself the centre of attention,
you see yourself the locus of event.
I'm sorry if it's painful quarrying the lime,
stage centre,
shouting down the passage of time.
The corridor retains its shadows,
its secrets compartmentalised.
Damping down on ambience,
clamp the teeth and grind,
shouting down the passage of time.
What's there to see or make clear?
What's there to know
when the voice is right here?
What's there to promise or vow?
What's to believe, when the time is right now?
Relatives spoke on the phone, on the train,
talking before they had sought to refrain;
voices projected, spears in mid-flight
frozen forever.... oh let there be light!
08 Patient (06:13)
A system in the making,
self-healing for the blind,
sitting in the waiting-room
of the patient mind;
raging at the illness
when the rage may be its cause,
the purpose of the will is lost
in the search for an escape clause,
in the search for an escape clause.
Fatal convalescence,
the wound becomes a weal;
the poison is in essence just
the virus of the real.
But there's sympathetic healing,
the power of the soul bandages,
concealing all that we can't control,
all that we can't control.
Waiting for the doctor to come.
Waiting for the doctor to come.
Waiting for the doctor to come.
Waiting for the doctor to come.
A system in the making,
self-healing for the blind,
sitting in the waiting-room
of the patient mind...
But there isn't any answer
the consciousness can quote
when the loaded dice of chance are there,
rattling in the throat,
rattling in the throat.
Waiting for the doctor to come.
Waiting for the doctor to come.
Waiting for the doctor to come.
Waiting for the doctor to come.
You put your faith in others;
the fear could not be worse,
but Nature's not your mother now,
just your suckling nurse.
There isn't any doctor,
there isn't any cure...
That might come as a shock to you,
but can you really be so sure?
Can you really be so sure?
Can you really be sure?
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