CD Review  

Clocking in at a pube under an hour, the seven tracks contained herein tell tales of love, hate, war, peace, babies and sand, all wrapped up in a tidy plastic jacket.

The CD starts with the title track, which is basically a bit of pretentious twaddle, but you prog fans like pretentious twaddle don't you. Anyway, it'll probably open the live shows when/if they tour. If they get Gwen Ross to sing it live, it'll be fantastic, but if they just use a tape, it'll be as naff as any other bands intro. Next is a high street fashion shop. This is followed by As Good As Gold (Song for Max), a song fairly bounces along about the undoubted joys of fatherhood (not The Fatherhood!). Boy, just wait til he gets to 18 months!!

Paintbox follows as it should, a slower number with lyrics telling of a young Nicks dream of being a Fireman, or perhaps a song about Fudges interest in unlicensed bonfires. You should and probably would if you could, skip The Pursuit Of Excellence, which, although a short track, hopefully doesn't show a newer direction for the band, trying to mix in a Celtic fed to their music, in an attempt to appeal to a wider 'American' audience.

Guardian Of My Soul is a much more better song, much more Pendragon. Possibly the best track on the CD. A stomping, romping, bomping belter of a song, that's followed by The Shadow, but aren't we all? This sees the return of the dodgy lyric, but in a great song, so they can be forgiven.

The first CD (the first pressing contains a 'bonus' CD) ends with Masters Of Illusion, another good old fashioned Pendragon song, you know the sort, bouncy and flouncy, yet deep and dark, and it'll probably finish their set. I like it. The whole CD benefits by having backing vocals from Sexy Tracy and Dirty Tina, and this track is no exception.

The second CD has just four tracks, two of which come from the main CD, but Schizo and The King Of The Castle (The Shadow part 2) are good enough tracks to have been included on the main CD. There's enough space, so why weren't they?? Was it a ploy to make you all buy the CD as soon as it came out and not risk not getting them with the second pressing, thus boosting initial sales?? How many copies were pressed first time round. Nick??