Van der Graaf Generator - Disc of the day

Van der Graaf Generator
Pawn Hearts

(Charisma, 1971)

“Acquired taste” prog diabolists take up stakes, gather kindling, terrify all-comers.

“You’ll begin to wonder if the points of all the ancients myths/ Are solemnly directed straight at you,” declaims Peter Hammill on the 23-minute A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers. Don’t laugh - listen to Van der Graaf Generator’s bad trip album enough, and you might end up agreeing that doom has sought you out, personally. Made up of just three very long songs, this is a by-turns resigned and possessed 40 minutes, employing the soft-then-alarming punk-prog model with demonic organ sounds, hard drum breaks and someone playing a sax they’ve plugged into the mains, all jackbooting up and down while Hammill writhes in primal torment (for a measure of the band’s chemistry, see the somewhat sinister inner sleeve image). Throughout, it refuses to let up – see how Man-Erg’s majestic rock switches on the electrodes with Hammill sneering “How can I be free?” (Johnny Rotten and Howard Devoto were definitely listening), or the building malaria music of A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers gives way to Hammill wondering if God exists to melancholy piano. Incredibly, the LP was Number 1 in Italy for 12 weeks. But they received no royalties and split up the following year, only to rise again with 1975’s Godbluff.

Ian Harrison

Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 6:00 AM GMT 17/06/2008