Rock The Boat: Best albums

Rock The Boat

Pendragon - Not of This World

Toff PEND10CD, 2001

Not of This World, by Pendragon

It has been five years since the last release from Pendragon, mainly due to the lead singer going through marital problems. Artists can change a lot in five years - so I wondered how this album would sound.

And it is not at all disappointing - this is Pendragon in top form. I always feel that the leading factor in their music is the powerful and strong electric guitar and keyboard combination, and Nick Barrett's vocals blend in a way that makes them compliment the music rather than vice versa.

The album kicks off with powerful introductory instrumentals, soon bursting forth into prog track after prog track, so that you completely lose where you are! After a whacking 67 minutes, it finishes with a typical Pendragon full-blast anthemic finish. Losing where you are is not helped by the track listing numbers not corresponding with the tracks on the CD itself!

Perhaps the most exciting piece is the largely instrumental title tack Not of this World on which the guitar and keyboards seem to gallop faster and faster without ever losing the precision that is always found in this band's music.

I find their style so individual that they are difficult to compare - a more powerful IQ perhaps, with plenty of Moody Blues and Pink Floyd ancestry.

But it hasn't finished at all. There are two more tracks in the form of accoustic versions of tracks from the last album. I find bonus tracks irritating, they never fit in with the rest of an album and in the case of Pendragon seem to be a complete anathema of what this band is really all about. Given that the main part of the album exceeds an hour's listening, I question the purpose of these two tracks which have already appeared on the album Pendragon:The History 1984-2000.

Rating: ****

Best track for radio: All over now

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Entry updated 24/01/02

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