Van Der Graaf Generator
Pawn Hearts

Fourth and immense album from a band now consecrated to legend! The leader of the group is the "necromancer" (as he defined himself) Peter Hammill, a true genius of dramatic singing who had the minstrel Tim Buckley as his muse.
The band plays without a guitar (only a few hints from the sublime guest Fripp), in its place is the Technique and the Fantasy of Jackson's saxophone which creates riffs of unique, chaotic, and terrifying intensity.
The sound is that of "Dark Progressive" with a gothic backdrop, tinged by Banton's organ and the driving of Evans' drums.

But let's get to the meaning of the album: the immensity of the cosmos and the insignificance of man.... Hammill was used to withdrawing and thinking in solitude about the mysteries of existence, about how pointless every single life is, about why we live if destined to die, about humanity's regression while progressing...
Hammill reflects on man's impotence against Fate, on life's cruelty and the mysticity of death.

In the first and dramatic piece, "Lemmings", our Hammill sings with indisputable anger and sadness. Beneath him, Jackson's sax punctuates the atrocious destiny of humanity: for the first time, we are struck by a sensation of inner emptiness and external chaos...
The following "Man-Erg" is a reflection on not truly knowing who we are, Hammill feels inside himself angels, killers, and other strange creatures, all forming his enigmatic character.
The piano plays a dominant role in the opening of the song, Peter's voice sings sweetly until it is overturned by an obsessive and at times unpleasant (but surely intentional) guitar riff by guest Fripp: certainly a piece that arises from the unconscious and cannot leave you anything but stunned and amazed!
But the highlight of the album is surely "A plague of lighthouse keepers". The solitude and impotence of a man lost at sea, the dreamlike visions appearing to him, the desire to continue living despite impending death: these are the existential themes translated into music by the brilliant Hammill. The track lasts a full twenty-four minutes and is divided into many parts, each musically different from the others, but desperate and dramatic, creating a unified whole of desolation in the face of life's cruelty.
"I am still waiting for my savior, storms are tearing my limbs apart... I am a lonely man, my solitude is real, my eyes have produced a stark witness and now my nights are numbered..."
The sea on which the man is lost is perhaps the unconscious, an infinite and unknown dimension where our nightmares and dreams take shape.

Below, I attach the part I deem to be the most dramatic and evocative of the piece, the album, and the entire progressive period; I would advise you to listen to it and let your mind think freely:

"I don't want to hate
I just want to grow
Why can't I just let myself
Live and be free?
Instead, I am dying so slowly alone
I know no other way
I am so afraid
Myself won't let me be
Just myself
And so, I am completely alone..."

Gentlemen, this is truly the pinnacle of progressive. My favorite album that you should definitely acquire and keep carefully along with "Islands" (King Crimson) and "First Utterance" (Comus).