PENDRAGON: Believe

Choice Of The Month Sept 2005
Cover	Release	Style
	2005-08	neo prog
	Label
	Toff Records / SPV / Inside Out
	Website
	www.pendragon.mu
	Contact

	Playing Time	Cat. N°
	51:48	PEND13CD, SPV 085-48462 CD
	Review by	Rating
	Danny	8,5/10
nederlands	Review
Gaelic female vocals, a vocoder and a guitar with a lot of effect are the ingredients of a dreamy intro of a fabulous album. An album we‘ve waited for during the last four years. An album that was announced as something different than the stuff we are used to hear from Pendragon. And indeed, it sounds different but not different enough to keep me from calling it a typical Pendragon album. They have worked on the sound. The use of Eastern and Celtic vocals, the vocoders, Nick who’s narrating a lot between and during the tracks, the high content of acoustic guitars, the great new sounds of Clive, the absence of Clive’s solos, all new and different. But you get used to all this very fast, because, as I already mentioned, the nature of the band and their music is still there. After the intro, there’s an up-tempo rocking track, in the vein of The Mask from Kowtow and other faster songs of Pendragon. During the second half, the story is being told by Nick and the acoustic guitar plays a leading part. Once again, Clive stays surprisingly on the background. “Wisdom of Solomon” contains a lot of Eastern female vocals and influences, followed by the well known dreamy Pendragon sound from “The World”, so start looking for your relaxing chair. Further down the track, a rhythmic acoustic guitar, balancing on the edge of Flamenco, takes over. The track builds up wonderfully with the bass and guitar as the most important building stones. Once the electric guitar joins in, the brilliant Pendragon is complete!! The epic track “Wishing Well” consists of 4 parts Part 1 “For your journey”: the most striking is the dreamy spacey sound of Clive and the angelic female voice which makes me think of Enya, while Nick tells his story. It’s a pity the name of the woman isn’t anywhere in the booklet. But if you take a look at Clive’s thanks list, he thanks a few firms for the use of their samples. Probably the woman never sung on this album and was only on some samples they bought. Modern Times ;-) Part 2 “Sou’ by Sou’west”: Once again the track opens quietly with an acoustic guitar but very soon the rhythm changes and we get another up tempo piece. When Nick starts some vocal harmony with his guitar, he delivers the so typical Pendragon sound, we all know so well. Nick can write some fabulous, melodic pieces for guitar and vocals. Just listen to the great melodic piece from the electric guitar in this song. The song ends very surprisingly in a chaos of bells and breaking glass before changing back to the acoustic guitar. Part 3 “We talked”: The heaviest piece of the CD and the track which sounds the least as Pendragon and certainly not the best track of the CD, although Fudge Smith does everything to prove the opposite. Part 4 “Two Roads” is one of the best tracks despite the heavy guitar sounds during the choruses. Four tracks which, if you look at the title, should form a unity but I don’t really hear or see the link. In the progumentary on the Pendragon site, Nick tells us it’s all about a voyage through humanity and the lyrics are telling about a ship, but that’s about it. I hear four tracks, without any returning musical themes. “Learning Curve“contains a jazzy atmosphere and during the final track, Nick proves once more how skilled he is on his electric and acoustic guitar. The artwork is done by their ‘own’ Simon Williams. He also has followed another direction, because his recognizable artwork has become a lot darker, but without loosing its beauty. An album that combines the best albums of Pendragon can’t go wrong. If it is better is another question, but I certainly love it as much. If you like Pendragon, you will certainly like “Believe”. It still strikes me how Clive isn’t profiling himself as usual. “Believe” is almost a solo album from Nick, but if you know his guitar playing and his compositions, you know it can’t be an obstacle for the big rush to the CD shops. Oh, before I forget, there’s a message from Pendragon in their booklet: “please do not copy, burn or upload this album for peer to peer usage, this threatens future Pendragon releases, Thanks” and I couldn’t agree more.
Musicians
Nick Barrett: vocals, guitars Peter Gee: Bass Clive Nolan: Keyboards Fudge Smith: Drums
Tracklist
Believe (2’57”) No Place for the Innocent (5’36”) Wisdom of Solomon (7’07”) The Wishing Well I. For Your Journey (4’31”) II. Sou’ by sou’west (6’48”) III. We Talked (5’29”) IV. Two Roads (4’19”) Learning Curve (6’38”) The Edge of the World (8’20”)


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