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Peter Hammill - Roaring Forties

Artist:	Peter Hammill
Title:	Roaring Forties
Label:	Mellow Records MMP 242
Length(s):	48 minutes
Year(s) of release:	1994
Month of review:	02/1996

Line up

Peter Hammill (surprising!) - guitars, keys, vocals
Manny Elias - drums
Nix Potter - bass
Stuart Gordon - violin
Simon Clarke - hammond organ
David Jackson - sax, flute

Tracks

1)	Sharply Unclear	5.40
2)	The Gift Of Fire (precursed)
3)	The Gift Of Fire (Talk Turkey)	8.30
4)	You Can't Want What You Always Get...
5)	... If You Haven't Got It Yet	9.32
A Headlong Stretch		19.24
6)	Up Ahead
7)	Continental Drift
8)	The Twelve
9)	Long Light
10)	Backwards Man
11)	As You Were
12)	Or So I Said
13)	Your Tall Ship	5.00

Summary

Well, everybody SHOULD know at least something by Hammill and IMO no progressive rock collection is complete without his two solo masterpieces The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage and In Camera and his two other masterpieces Over and The Fall of the House of Usher (which should be played with an orchestra once. Who wants to spend some money). After a laspe during In a Foreign Town, which for me stands as his weakest album (it's actually bad at times) he got better with later albums, although The Noise, his previous one was again a bit of a disappointment. This album features only a few, but quite long tracks. I've heard many people tell that he's sort back on the track again. I wonder...

The music

The album starts off wonderfully well with Sharply Unclear. This track has it all: a good melody, of course good playing, an angry performance with menacing violins. The next track is also very good, but unfortunately the third one does not have that much of an impact. What we get is a track which has too much vocals for my tastes (all by PH by the way), making it into a rather bouncy track with a lot of vocals, but with little melody.

Anyway, the next track is very rocking with organ and sax, but again the melody leaves one wishing. This was also a problem I had with The Noise. Because of the rock, the melody seems to be forgotten and the tracks start to sound alike.

The fifth track is a jamming freestyle excursion with a lot of sax and violin again. The absence of vocals leaves some breathing space.

The last track is a quiet, restful one. Beautiful in a way, with a build-up at the end.

The main part of the CD is taken up by Headlong Stretch. This track is multi parted (6-12), and they are lyrically connected. Most of the tracks are alright as it goes, but only a few stand out being most notably part 9. This is a spooky part and is rather like old VDGG. For the other parts it's world influences, layered vocals, acoustic parts, heavy sax parts and what else we chance to encounter on PH's albums. The long track ends acquiescent (is that the right word? Well, hope so).

Conclusion

Hmm, a good album but still but not his best. A lot people thought this would be a step back to VDGG, but it's not THAT good. Still, the style seems to be back and there's a lot of promise. Unfortunately some tracks are just no varied enough.