Friday 5 December 2014

The Emperor in His War Room (Van Der Graaf Generator, 1970)

One of my favourite prog songs ever. And that's saying something. The first sung lines are irresistible to me, with their sad and almost liturgical taste, then Peter Hammill goes through the first section (that's called The Emperor) running up and down his vocal extension and the listener's spine. The vocal harmonies, the keyboard backgrounds, the instrumental bridge between this part and the second one (The Room), well, all is highly emotional and bloody well done.

A wonderful season for VDGG... and for us all!

And when the first theme comes back, I'm actually KO... it's pure progressive juice to my lips, a fatal succession of dark and lights, whispers and cries, stops and progressions. No, I don't need to say more: when good melodies, skilled performances and emotions meet in a single song, that is my song. And something tells me it isn't only mine... but I'm not a jealous guy, after all!

No comments:

Post a Comment