Leaping seven years forward to
Album title: Pure
Artist: Pendragon
Nationality: English
Year: 2008
Chronology: 8
Track Listing: Indigo/Eraserhead/Comatose (i) View From the Seashore (ii) Space Cadet (iii) Home and Dry/The Freak Show/It’s Only Me
Comments: The first thing you notice about this album is its heaviness. Up until now, Pendragon have not been a band noted for their aggression or power; they’ve had powerful songs, yes, but being a progressive rock band has usually meant being not quite so much restrained or idyllic, but certainly not in your face.
Pure changes all that. With a grinding guitar riff, the repeated sound of a dog barking and a bleak lyric, it’s an indication of the direction this band are heading as the first decade of the twenty-first century nears its end. There’s a sense of drama, even danger to this album and the guitar is definitely front and centre. “Indigo” marches along with a swagger that shows a statement of intent from Pendragon, that they mean to be very much relevant in these changing times.
Thankfully, however, melody and form have not been sacrificed for aggression, and it’s the same band, just a sort of version 2.0 which perhaps began with 2005’s
Believe, as Nick begins to tackle more real-world and political issues, something which will continue through their next albums and get more prevalent as time goes on. Interesting that the opener, despite not being a suite, is the longest, clocking in at nearly fourteen minutes, also that there is just the one suite on the album, and it’s up soon. First though the biting “Eraserhead” keeps up the pressure, some nice introspective guitar passages leavening it out, but it’s hard to ignore the anger in this song.
The three-part “Comatose” opens with a soft, reflective memory in “The View From the Seashore” riding on Nolan’s lovely piano melody before slipping into the dark, gritty “Space Cadet” which seems to me to look back to the previous “Eraserhead” and focuses on the prelude to a school shooting, ending in a powerful spoken “On Monday, I’m taking in a gun” before sighing its way into the final part, “Home and Dry”, where Nick paints his scorn of religion in loud and proud brush strokes across this masterpiece.
“The Freak Show” again comes in on hard, punchy guitar and references memories, insecurities, dreams, and the album ends on the obligatory ballad, which has certainly been worth waiting right to the end for. “It’s Just Me” is another look back to the past, with some really nice harmonica and perhaps a statement of band unity when Nick sings “We are a band of brothers.” May they never break up.
Track(s) I liked: Everything
Track(s) I didn't like: Nothing
One standout: Possibly “Indigo”
One rotten apple: Nah
Overall impression: A different side to Pendragon; heavier, more aggressive and more politically-directed in terms of the lyrics. A natural progression from
Believe and leading on to
Passion, four years later. Almost perfect.
Rating: 9.8/10