1. Lemmings (including Cog) - 11:372. Man-Erg - 10:20
3. A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers - 23:04
a) Eyewitness
b) Pictures/Lighthouse
c) Eyewitness
d) S.H.M.
e) Presence of the Night
f) Kosmos Tours
g) (Custard's) Last Stand
h) The Clot Thickens
i) Land's End (Sineline)
j) We Go Now
Following the already brilliant H to He Who Am the Only One, Van Der Graaf Generator completely blow the roof off the studio and deliver one of the greatest examples of dark progressive rock ever put on vinyl. The three extended compositions on Pawn Hearts are towering, ambitious opuses unidentifiable with any normal genre of music or standard song structure. Peter Hammill's impassioned vocals, Hugh Banton's heavenly organ compositions and devilish synthesizer experiments, David Jackson's multi-tracked saxophone power blasts, and Guy Evans' intense percussion form a truly unique amalgam, and they are reaching for the highest heights their art can attain on this album.
"Lemmings" is a truly frightening yet poetic portrayal of civilization's blind rush toward destruction. The music mirrors the tumultuous lyrics with styles ranging from pastoral to martial, industrial to elegiac, ending with a note of timid hope about persevering for posterity, yet with a musical question mark as the tune decays into an ambient, mysterious coda.
"Man-Erg" switches focus inward, as Hammill examines the warring forces of good and evil inside a person. Banton's piano and pipe organ in the verses is pure bliss - restrained, elegant, beautifully harmonic. Jackson's flute is the perfect complement to the stately melody as Hammill sings softly, yet intently. It builds into a passionate chorus (though is it a chorus if none of the words are repeated?), then switches suddenly to a harsh staccato attack of sax and synth in 11/8 time as Hammill wails "How can I be free? / How can I get help? / Am I really me? / Am I someone else?" That transitions to a downright soulful "bridge" where he tries to collect the pieces of his contradictory reflections. After one more verse where it all comes together - "I too live inside me / And very often don't know who I am" - the pent up energy releases into a glorious final chorus where the stately main theme is undermined by the recurrence of the psychotic sax/synth 11/8 barrage, which starts quiet but eventually swallows hope in a loud crash of desperation. For me, this song exemplifies VDGG and their unique musical vision.
The second half of the album expands the already prodigious lyrical and musical genius of the first two songs to a single extended composition, the most ambitious, sprawling, and fantastic piece the band ever put together. It is very difficult to do justice to this richly dense work. By turns haunting, mysterious, chaotic, jubilant, contemplative, and unsettling, it chronicles feelings of loneliness, lost identity, and despair at the inescapable trap of rationalism, which can undermine any philosophy yet offers no solution to the very real dangers of existence. But don't take my word for it, watch the video.
Arbitrary rating: 5 out of 5 blind rushes toward destruction
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