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They unexpectedly reappeared in 2005.
We had left them, or rather, they had left us quietly, almost on tiptoe, the Van Der Graaf Generator, with the last studio album (The Quiet Zone / The Pleasure Dome, from 1977) and with a final live, Vital from 1978, to mark the definitive end of the group's activity.
But these two albums had left many question marks: the absence of David Jackson and Hugh Banton, Graham Smith's violin instead of the sax, the return of bassist Nick Potter. No, it couldn't end like this, because just when no one expects to even hear their name mentioned again, the cursed quartet of English Progressive returns to the scene. And they do it in style. Just four faces in the dark: a cover that already hints at the mood of the entire album. A great gothic ballad indeed opens 'Present', the new classic of the band Every Bloody Emperor. Here Hammill sings like in the old days, and the keyboards played by him and Hugh Banton do the rest. The lyrics are as dark as ever: Hammill lashes out against all the figures who, thirsty for power, abused it, ultimately sinking; but he also speaks about the people living under these regimes, reduced to the role of "servants and slaves".
The instrumental Boleas Panic was written by saxophonist and flutist David Jackson and it's a dark piece, with the wind section naturally in great evidence. Nutter Alert is the other great piece of the album, where Hammill's voice once again evokes all the drama we already knew from the past. Painfully fantastic. In Abandon Ship that genius Peter Hammill picks up the guitar, plays it with weird effects, sings peculiar vocal lines over it, and then almost recites during the interludes. And then there's In Babelsberg, another complicated track, like the one before, where the drum rhythms are unplayable, but certainly not for the great Guy Evans. Finally, On The Beach, a calm ballad, worthy of past tracks like Refugees. But the party isn't over yet.
Not one, but two are the CDs: a great gift for every fan. The studio improvisations, ah, an unlistenable prog-delight, impossible to comment on song by song. Whoever withstands listening to the end can call themselves a true Progman (a bit like the live Thrakkathak by King Crimson). A complicated listen, it's true, but one to frame. It's a great reunion then (bands like Genesis should follow their example!), born by chance in 2004 during a dinner among old friends at Peter Hammill's cottage. Taking up the instruments again immediately seemed like an extraordinary idea to the group, which had been immersed in other activities for too long: David Jackson worked with disabled children, Hugh Banton had opened a company that built organs, Guy Evans was a drum teacher, while Peter Hammill had been the only one not to leave the stage with a great solo career full of originality.
Finding them again in record stores with a new album was an immense emotion, imagine what those who, like me, saw them live at the Consevatory in Milan felt, on that magical June 11, 2005…
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
01 Every Bloody Emperor (07:03)
Every Bloody Emperor Lyrics
By this we are all sustained: a belief in human nature
And in justice and parity...all we have is the faith to carry on.
Imperceptible the change as our votes become mere gestures
And our lords and masters determine to cast us
In the roles of serfs and slaves
In the new empire's name.
Yes and every bloody emperor claims that freedom is his cause
As he buffs up on his common touch as a get-out clause.
Unto nations nations speak in the language of the gutter;
Trading primetime insults the imperial impulse
Extends across the screen.
Truth's been beaten to its knees; the lies embed ad infinitum
Till their repetition becomes a dictum
We're traitors to disbelieve.
With what impotence we grieve for the democratic process
As our glorious leaders conspire to feed us
The last dregs of imperious disdain
In the new empire's name.
Yes and every bloody emperor's got his hands up history's skirt
As he poses for posterity over the fresh-dug dirt.
Yes and every bloody emperor with his sickly rictus grin
Talks his way out of nearly anything but the lie within
Because every bloody emperor thinks his right to rule divine
So he'll go spinning and spinning and spinning into his own decline.
Imperceptible the change as one by one our voices falter
And the double standards of propaganda
Still all our righteous rage.
By this we are all sustained: our belief in human nature.
But our faith diminishes - close to the finish,
We're only serfs and slaves
As the empire decays.
03 Nutter Alert (06:11)
It might come in a letter,
darkness falls in a telephone call;
I await the unexpected
with one ear to the party wall.
Is it the pricking of the conscience,
is it the itching of hair shirt,
is it the dictionary definition
of a precipice to skirt?
It's the nutter alert.
Though this face is familiar
something in it has bred contempt;
I never asked for your opinion
or your back-handed compliments.
Oh, but here comes that special nonsense
all the words out in a spurt,
the unhinging of the trolley
as the mouth begins to blurt...
it's the nutter alert
I can see we're in trouble
from that glint in the eye you've got;
there's no sense to the story,
comprehensively lost, the plot.
And how contorted is that logic
you so forcefully exert:
you're a car crash in the making,
head-on, that's a racing cert.
It's the nutter alert,
this is the nutter alert.
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By animasalva
In the current musical landscape, the latest album by Van Der Graaf Generator is a masterpiece.
With 'Present' they have made us relive the extraordinary emotions of the golden years of progressive rock.
