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Rating: The Van Der Graaf Generator are one of the most important groups of the progressive rock movement that emerged in the early Seventies, not very famous but with a particular and highly recognizable style, characterized by dark, dramatic, and immensely modern hues.
After their first album, "Aerosol Grey Machine", which only boasts some melodic songs like "Afterwards", the following three, namely the reviewed "H To He Who Am The Only One" and "Pawn Hearts", are their three masterpieces. I do not prefer any of the three to the others as the sound remains almost the same and the percentage of good songs is likewise. Like three parts of a single work.
The beginning of "The Least..." consists of a gloomy atmosphere, with a dark breath of wind, upon which the drums are added first, like a slight ticking, then the piano, and finally the vocals, initially whispered but then exploding in the chorus together with the sax. It is "Darkness" (with a meaningful title), a splendid "dark" opening, played on the continuous alternation of "quiet" parts, and other noisy, epic, and dramatic sections, marked by Jackson's disorienting sax.
It is followed by a nostalgic, melancholic ballad with an atmosphere that smells of antiquity, "Refugees", opened by a sweet flute doubled by the violin. Hammill's voice is no longer dramatic and dark as in the first song, but has become romantic-melancholic (foreshadowing the likes of Coldplay and Travis by thirty years) and even the sax, which enters later, is much more peaceful and melodic. As time progresses, the mood becomes increasingly epic (with the entrance of background choirs, for example), yet always maintaining that sweet sadness that permeates the entire song.
The third track opens with Banton's organ, which takes us back to very distant times. On this base, the vocals are inserted, in an epic tone, which after a slow start unleashes violently, aided by a nervous guitar and bass riff: this song, like the first, is made up of a continuous interchange between the calm verses and the lively and dramatic chorus; after about six minutes, when it already seems finished, some notes played by a distorted guitar insinuate themselves and foreshadow the magnificent sax solo, neurotic and extremely "noisy".
The tendency to use frequent rhythm changes is even more evident in "Whatever Should Robert Have Said," where the slow acoustic verses alternate throughout the track with the very lively chorus, where the vocals, always underscored by organ and sax, become more histrionic and epic than ever. "Out Of My Book" instead represents a small pause, a medieval tableau in the Genesis style with flute, acoustic guitar, and the usual organ to accompany the singing.
The final track, "After the Flood", beautiful but perhaps a bit too long (it lasts 11 minutes...), re-presents the characteristics of the entire album: alternation of acoustic tableaus, epic-dramatic traits, and moments of noisy fury, with different scores of sax and organ (at one point there is even a flute solo in the style of Ian Anderson). A sort of short version of that masterpiece that will be "A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers", a year later.
The whole is once again dominated by Hammill's exceptional voice with its continuous tone variations, which imprints the true imprint, the VDGG brand, that dramatic, epic, decadent, and melancholic sound.
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