And so we return to our
Album title: The Masquerade Overture
Artist: Pendragon
Nationality: English
Year: 1996
Chronology: 5
Track Listing: The Masquerade Overture/As Good as Gold/Paintbox/The Pursuit of Excellence/Guardian of My Soul/The Shadow/Masters of Illusion/Schizo
Comments: Generally seen as one of their best albums, it’s like with Genesis and
Selling England by the Pound - I disagree. It’s a good album, certainly, but for me well behind other efforts, including the oft-maligned
Kowtow. Positioned more or less squarely in the middle of their discography, it shows Pendragon as a growing force in prog rock, but there are songs on it I don’t personally like. It kicks off with the title track, and overture it is, complete with orchestra and operatic chorus, very moving, taking us into, rather unfortunately, “As Good as Gold”, which is a real misnomer and as bad a Pendragon track as I’ve come across to date. I just hate it. It’s uptempo, boppy and completely throwaway. The fans who complained about the “trite poppiness” of
Kowtow should have been directing their ire at this song, though I will say that it’s at its worst when they edit it down to the basics, as on the bonus tracks. Here the full version has something about it, with a nice piano intro but once you get to the meat of the matter it’s nothing to write home about.
“Paintbox” is much better, with a very reflective feel to it, Nick on top form vocally, some great keyboard work from Nolan, while I have issues with “The Pursuit of Excellence”, which not only sounds as if they’ve filched the main melody - and indeed the lyric - from some Irish traditional song about emigration, but also runs along very similar lines to Dire Straits’ “Brothers in Arms”. Poor, really, and didn’t they already cover this subject on
The World five years ago, when they penned “The Voyager”? The pipes only add to the Celtic feel of the song; well at least it’s short, shortest on the album in fact. And it just about wraps up what might be considered (certainly by me) the weaker half of this record.
The three remaining tracks are all epics, in one way or the other. “Guardian of my Soul” runs for nearly thirteen minutes, and though it starts quite uptempo and rocky it soon settles into a gentle, relaxing rhythm, but again the ghost of Pink Floyd raises its head, where they quite clearly rob the main melody from “Sorrow” off the
Momentary Lapse of Reason album. Being as long as it is, of course, it doesn’t stay relaxing and goes through some considerable changes along the way, allowing both Nick and Clive to show off their prowess, then “The Shadow” puts in a good ten minutes, opening on soft piano and gentle vocal, I like the kind of nursery rhyme rhythm in the third minute, and the sort of waltz feel of it too. Still, while I don’t want to keep harping on about the musical plagiarism idea (yes I do) isn’t that a reworking of the closing section of Genesis’s “Entangled” at the end?
Finally, “Masters of Illusion” manages to be the longest track, but only beating out “Guardian of My Soul” by a mere nine seconds. Much of it comes across as a slightly slower version of “Saved by You” though, and it is quite repetitive; not sure it needs to be seconds short of thirteen minutes long. I wouldn’t call it filler by any means but still. In fairness, it does change and morph almost entirely into another song around the five-minute mark, so maybe its length is justified. It might be that I’ve heard the edited version of this and it sounds pretty much all right on its own, so this seems a little dragged out to me. They also use those Pink Floyd-trademarked female backing vocals/choir again, with a very Gilmouresque guitar solo from Nick into the bargain. Reminds me a little of the end of “Comfortably Numb” I think.
Normally I tend to ignore bonus tracks, and to be honest the tracks added on this one deserve to be ignored: edited versions of “As Good as Gold” (only decent because it’s shorter), “The Shadow” (going under the title of “King of the Castle - The Shadow Part 2”) and as already mentioned, the closer, “Masters of Illusion.” However, there is one new track, and it’s actually one of my favourites of theirs, which is why I hate to diss it but I must. Because “Schizo” is basically Floyd’s “Learning to Fly”, ripping off not only both the guitar riff and melody but also, again, those backing vocals, which only serve to emphasise how much like the Floyd song it is. It’s pretty shocking to be honest and I just can’t get my head around how a talented band like Pendragon keep having to rip other bands off. And it must be deliberate: once you could call coincidence, twice maybe unlucky, but I can point to at least half a dozen instances of this wholesale use of other people’s music in their discography, and that’s not good.
Track(s) I liked: The Masquerade Overture/Paintbox/Guardian of My Soul/The Shadow/Schizo
Track(s) I didn't like: As Good as Gold/The Pursuit of Excellence
One standout: Can’t really decide, but despite what I say above maybe “Schizo”, though that’s only a bonus track
One rotten apple: “As Good as Gold”, all day long. I hate it.
Overall impression: A very good Pendragon album but as with SEBTP I don’t see the love it gets. It’s not by any means their best album in my opinion, and while it has a lot (a lot) to recommend it, I see a good few weak spots and it would not even for me be as good as
Kowtow or
The World.
Rating: 8.2/10