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Rating:
Some things you either love or hate.
For example, white truffle is a very sought-after dish that few, however, can appreciate the taste of. Well, I know it might sound absurd, but this is also the case with Van Der Graaf Generator. Listening to one of their tracks for the first time, indeed, you can't remain indifferent; you either fall in love with it or you just find it appalling. Of course, one small thing should be noted: a person who has only ever drunk water will never be able to distinguish a Lambrusco from a Bordeaux... and likewise, if you don't want to push yourself beyond the confined boundaries where today's music often nests, you'll never grasp the true taste of any Van Der Graaf song.
But enough about cooking, let's talk about the album reviewed: 'Godbluff' dates back to 1975 and is the band's fifth album. Three years earlier, after the Pawn Hearts tour, the leader Peter Hammill (vocals, piano, guitar) had left the group to dedicate himself to his solo projects, yet remained on good terms with the other members, who helped him record his solo works. Eventually, the group returned to the studio, and the result of their work was 'Godbluff'.
Consisting of four rather long songs, all written by Hammill, the album is dominated by an atmosphere of anger and pessimism that emanates both from the lyrics and the musical parts themselves. It all opens with "The Undercover Man": a light flute accompaniment (David Jackson) to which Guy Evans' silent cymbal play and Hugh Banton's organ then add. Hammill whispers, his voice touches the lowest notes... it's all a crescendo, leading to the entry of the piano, which, together with the drums, breaks the tension and gives the track a resigned melancholy, underscored by Peter's melodramatic singing, which now reaches higher. And so, you are gently led to the end of the track, which presents no great outbursts but still offers great emotions.
Here, if you want the "big outbursts" instead, you'll be satisfied with the following track; "Scorched Earth" is recorded live and shows VDGG in their most classic lineup: Hammill vocals and guitar, Jackson on sax, and Banton on organ. 10 minutes full of rhythmic accelerations, absurd tempos, now aggressive, now anguishing riffs... in short, it shows you the wildest side of the band. Unfortunately, there is a flaw: the recording quality (after all, it's a live recording from 30 years ago!) results in being quite low. The same does not apply to the following "Arrow". And thank goodness! The song is full of many small details that in "Scorched Earth" you could never notice. The pace is less overwhelming, more fragmented. It seems like the instruments are trembling. The desperation emanated by the singing, echoed by the sax, is impressive. So harrowing the final cries of Peter: "How strange my body feels / Impaled upon the arrow "... And here we have "The Sleepwalkers", the last track, in my opinion, the best. The attack is formidable: organ and flute create hypnotic riffs over which Hammill dominates, venturing his voice through scales and very particular notes that an ordinary person could never imitate. The time of the track changes constantly, Evans shows off on the drums. There's also space for a cabaret interlude. And then a nice organ solo, and then again schizophrenic screams, and a new section that ends up in the reprise of the initial part... A breathtaking experience, we're no longer at the levels of "A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers" but we're close.
In conclusion, I would like to spend a few lines on the lyrics: VDGG's songs don't talk about imaginary journeys, fantastic worlds, or other widely used subjects in the lyrics of the most famous progressive albums. Peter Hammill is a sort of poet of the unconscious, who since 1970 (well before Roger Waters conceived the concept of The Dark Side Of The Moon) had a clear idea of what he wanted to do: express through his music and lyrics the anxieties that reigned in his soul and could reflect in every man's life. Solitude, misunderstanding, fear, madness, death... these are, in most cases, the keywords of his compositions. Wordplays, rhymes, and metaphors bring to life these true and proper poems, whose meaning is not at all easy to understand if one is not well-versed in the English language. On this note, I want to point out to enthusiasts (though I fear there won't be many... !) that there is a book available on the market with all the VDGG lyrics translated into Italian: it could be a good opportunity to venture among the dark paths that this unique and inimitable band decided to walk for the first time.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
02 Scorched Earth (09:48)
(Hammill - Jackson)
Just one crazy moment while the dice are cast,
he looks into the future and remembers what is past,
wonders what he's doing on this battlefield,
shrugs to his shadow, impatient, too proud yet to kneel.
In his wake he leaves scorched earth and work in vain;
smoke drifts up behind him - he is free again,
free to run before the onslaught of a deadly foe,
leaving nothing fit for pillage, hardly leaving home.
It's far too late to turn, unless it's to stone.
Charging madly forward, tracks across the snow,
wind screams madness to him, ever on he goes
leaving spoor to mark his passage, trace his weary climb.
Cross the moor and make the headland -
stumbling, wayward, blind.
In the end his footprints extend as one single line.
This latest exponent of heresy is goaded into an attack,
persuaded to charge at his enemy.
Too late, he knows it is, too late now to turn back,
too soon by far to falter.
The past sits uneasily at his rear,
he's walking right into the trap,
surrounded, but striving through will and fear.
Ahead of him he knows there waits an ambuscade
but the dice slip through his fingers
and he's living from day to day,
carrying his world around upon his back,
leaving nothing behind but the tell-tale of his track.
He will not be hostage, he will not be slave,
no snare of past can trap him, though the future may.
Still he runs and burns behind him in advanced retreat;
still his life remains unfettered - he denies defeat.
It's far too late to turn, unless it's to stone.
Leave the past to burn - at least that's been his own.
Scorched earth, that's all that's left when he's done;
holding nothing but beholden to no-one,
claiming nothing, out of no false pride, he survives.
Snow tracks are all that's left to be seen
of a man who entered the course of a dream,
claiming nothing but the life he's known
- this, at least, has been his own.
03 Arrow (09:45)
Stub towers in the distance,
riders cross the blasted moor
against the horizon.
Fickle promises of treaty,
fatal harbingers of war, futile orisons
swirl as one in this flight, this mad chase,
this surge across the marshy mud landscape
until the meaning is forgotten.
Hood masks the eager face, skin stretched and sallow,
headlong into the chilling night, as swift as any arrow.
Feet against the flagstones,
fingers scrabbling at the lock,
craving protection.
'Sanctuary!' croaks a voice,
half-strangled by the shock of its rejection.
Shot the bolt in the wall, rusted the key;
now the echoes of all frightful memory
intrude in the silence.
What a crawl against the slope - dark loom the gallows.
One touch to the chapel door, how swiftly comes the arrow.
"Compassion" you plead,
as though they kept it in a box -
that's long since been empty.
I'd like to help you somehow,
but I'm in the self-same spot:
my condition exempts me.
We are all on the run, on our knees;
the sundial draws a line upon eternity
across every number.
How long the time seems, how dark the shadow,
how straight the eagle flies, how straight towards his arrow.
How long the night is - why is this passage so narrow?
How strange my body feels, impaled upon the arrow.
04 The Sleepwalkers (10:31)
At night, this mindless army, ranks unbroken by dissent,
is moved into action and their pace does not relent.
In step, with great precision, these dancers of the night
advance against the darkness - how implacable their might!
Eyes undulled by moon, their arms and legs akimbo,
they walk and live, hoping soon to surface from this limbo.
Their minds, anticipating the dawn of the day,
shall never know what's waiting mere insight away
- too far, too soon.
Senses dimmed in semi-sentience, only wheeling through this plane,
only seeing fragmented images, prematurely curtailed by the brain,
but breathing, living, knowing in some measure at least
the soul which roots the matter of both Beauty and the Beast.
From what tooth or claw does murder spring,
from what flesh and blood does passion?
Both cut through the air with the pendulum's swing
in deadly but delicate fashion.
And every range of feeling is there in the dream
and every logic's reeling in the force of the scream;
the senses sting.
And though I may be dreaming and reality stalls
I only know the meaning of sight and that's all
and that's nothing.
The columns of the night advance,
infectiously, their cryptic dance
gathers converts to the fold -
in time the whole raw world will pace these same steps
on into the same bitter end.
Somnolent muster - now the dancing dead
forsake the shelter of their secure beds,
awaken to a slumber whose depths they dread,
as if the ground they tread would give way
beneath the solemn weight of their conception.
I'd search the hidden corners of all this world,
make reason of the sensory whorl
if I only had time,
but soon the dream is ended.
Tonight, before you lay down to the sweetness of your sleep
do you question your surrender to the drop from Lover's Leap
or does the anaesthetic darkness take hold on its very own?
Does your body rise in service with not one dissenting groan?
These waking dreams of life and death
in the mirror are twisted and buckled;
lashes flicker, a catch of breath,
skin whitening at the knuckles.
The army of sleepwalkers shake their limbs and are loose
and though I am a talker, I can phrase no excuse
not to rise again.
In the chorus of the night-time I belong
and I, like you, must dance to that moonlight song
and in the end I, too, must pay the cost of this life.
If all is lost none is known
and how could we lose what we've never owned?
Oh, I'd search out every knowledge that I could find,
unravel all the mysteries of mind,
if I only had time,
if I only had time,
but soon my time is ended.
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