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Pendragon - As Good As Gold

Artist:	Pendragon
Title:	As Good As Gold
Label:	Toff MOB4CD
Length(s):	21 minutes
Year(s) of release:	1996
Month of review:	01/1997

Line up

Nick Barrett - guitars, vocals
Peter Gee - bass
Fudge Smith - drums
Clive Nolan - keyboards

Tracks

1)	As Good As Gold	3.29
2)	Bird Of Paradise	6.55
3)	Midnight Running	7.45
4)	A Million Miles Away	3.17

Summary

This mini album based on an edit of As Good As Gold took some time coming, but then I got two!?

The music

The first track is an edit of the accessible and melodic As Good As Gold. The refrain is good, but all in all this is rather a poppy track, still like with much of Pendragon it has an undefinable quality, that make you accept things that you never would of anyband else. This is meant as a compliment by the way. The short length also implies that the guitarsolo only sets in a little and fades almost directly.

The ballad Bird of Paradise is again very melodic and sounds a bit sad. After a very soft beginning, the song is enriched with some percussion and some piano, while after a few unsuccesful attempts, the keyboards are allowed their solo. The song becomes a up-tempo now, and what strikes me is that the singing sounds a little tired and only in a few places does passion shine through as in the first and last part of the track. A nice track, especially the beginning and the end with some nice percussion in the middle.

The third track starts out with guitar and is a little reminiscent of Mike Oldfield, quite repetitive. There is also a bit of that Keltic sound there, while Clive lays down his layers of keyboards. There's more drive in this song, bordering on menacing. At the end the song becomes a little melodramatic and contains some nice breaks as is expected of a track of this length. Especially the abrupt break into a soft repetitive keyboard part after which the guitar has its mandatory solo. A good solo, the best until now (hmm, also the only).

A Million Miles Away could already be found on the Japanese version of the Masquerade Overture and now we can also enjoy it. Starting out peacefully this ballad stays peaceful, although again rather sad, and the guitar is the big absentee (is this English?).

Conclusion

Well, what can I say. Very accessible, but with attractive melodies. The singing sounds a bit unfinished in places, but it's to pin down what is really wrong with it. In some places passion comes over, as it should. The guitar is not that important on this album as it is on the minor epics of the regular releases, but a lot of keyboard and also somewhat piano are present here, making most of the melodies. Masquerade Overture should be preferred over this one, being nothing more than an inbetween release with a few left over tracks it seems. The quality of the tracks is maybe just a little lower, but MO contains much more music (especially if you have the double version for the same price).

Jur