There’s no denying that Van der Graaf Generator were the prog band that it was okay for the punks to dig. From John Lydon, Julian Cope, Mark E. Smith of The Fall, Soft Cell’s Marc Almond, Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson, and of course The Mars Volta. A group that refuses to play by the rules and were brutal, sinister, ominous, in your face, and experimental right to the core.
It’s also 20 years ago I fell into the world of their music and Peter Hammill’s lyrical textures after reading about them in MOJO Magazine’s Prog Rock edition when I was in college. They weren’t singing about lord of the rings, dungeons and dragons, or about the hippie movement, they were described by Martin Aston in his article about the band this; “If Yes were Tolkien and Genesis were Lewis Carroll, then VDGG were Kierkegaard crossed with Edgar Allen Poe”.
Now that’s a statement. A bold statement which I can go for. That and this 2-CD / Blu-Ray release of the band’s seventh studio album World Record is getting the proper treatment from the good folks from Esoteric Recordings. Originally released on Tony Stratton Smith’s Charisma label, World Record was recorded in May of 1976 at the famous Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire, Wales and released in October that same year.
It also marked the final album to feature the classic line up; Hugh Banton, Peter Hammill, David Jackson, and Guy Evans until their 2005 reunion release of Present. Often under the radar, World Record doesn’t get mentioned a bit from their catalog. When you think of their catalog you think of H to He, Who Am The Only One, Pawn Hearts, Godbluff, and The Least We Can Do is Wave to Each Other, but World Record is a defining album that deserves recognition.
And with Stephen W. Tayler handling the new stereo mix for World Record, he already had his hands full during The Charisma Years box set released in 2021, tackling H to He, Godbluff, Pawn Hearts, and Still Life. On World Record, he has brought the album to life as if Frankenstein has been reborn to raise hell like no other. And this time, he’s not backing down without a fight.
From the moment ‘When She Comes’ begins you feel the slithering tones of the woman’s hypnotic approach towards you, thanks to Jackson’s sax and Hammill’s detailing what is about to happen. As he sings in the lyrics; “You should have noticed/that the lady with the skin so white/like something out of Blake or Burne-Jones/always blocked out the light/and shadowed all you owned”.
This isn’t a woman whose luring men to make love to her, this is a woman who’s keen on revenge of people who had abused her, taunt her, used her as a sex object, she’s back for justice. And Tayler’s mix in this composition it adds in the textures. Listen to Evans’ drum patterns, it has that reverbing effect and rising organ section from Banton, they’re setting up the intense sequence that’s about to unfold.
And once the mysterious figure plans her revenge, it isn’t going to go well. It’s going to be brutal, menacing, and disturbing at the same time. But then Evans’ reverbing effect kicks into overdrive for the introduction to ‘A Place to Survive’.
At first you think it sounds like a heavy riff organ section that almost speaks of the Scorpions’ ‘Rock You Like a Hurricane’, but once Jackson comes in the picture setting up his smoky orientation on his sax and Hammill’s heavy guitar work, all bets are off. The vibes are more intense and more powerful than the original mix of the album had.
Hammill is almost like this powerful god, detailing the post-apocalyptic scenery, parallel universes, and the bitterness to go through a subject called survival of the fittest. The midsection becomes this damning nightmare as Hammill yells to its test subject “Stand straight looking into the future/walk on/we’ve each got our own lives/Don’t wait for a guru or tutor/be strong/it’s your place to survive”.
What he’s saying to them is don’t wait for peace and happiness, you need to think for yourself and look forwards into the future, because the past and the present are behind you, think of what you need to survive and there’s no turning back once you move forward. When I think of ‘Masks’ I think of someone who’s leading a revolution to take over the city from its corrupt king who has turned it into a war that’s about to erupt at any second.
But what the townsfolk doesn’t know is that this revolutionist is playing a doubling role, bullshitting his followers by taking over the city with an iron fist and doing things his way. There’s something Orwellian and Rand-like in this song as Hammill details the dystopian city set in their universes, knowing that the price that they play aren’t innocent to begin with, but as what the character Diane McClintock from the 2007 video game BioShock once said in an audio diary, “There are heroes, and there are criminals.”
The 20-minute epic ‘Meurglys III (The Songwriters Guild)’ at first you think it sounds like an animated sci-fi epic that Don Bluth could’ve written to follow it up to his successful video game franchise Dragon’s Lair, but it is the name of Peter’s guitar that he used during the time World Record was recorded at Rockfield. His guitar was a Guild M-75 Bluesbird. That’s why its called ‘The Songwriters Guild’.
This isn’t the first time they recorded a piece in 20 minutes, the first one is their magnum opus ‘A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers’ from their fourth studio album Pawn Hearts released in 1971. Listening to ‘Meurglys III’ there are similar passages Hammill had written this piece between his solo albums such as Chameleon in the Shadow of the Night and The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage from ’73 to ’74, followed by an expanded edition of ‘The Emperor in his War Room’ and ‘La Rossa’ that comes to mind.
Hammill is very much like an actor, playing his part down the line, detailing the tragic downfall of another kingdom with intimate breakdowns, climbing scenarios, and instrumental passageways add more flames to keep you warmed up until the very end. Van der Graaf aren’t fooling around when it comes to their own response to Prog epics.
The last four minutes sees the band walking into the Ska/Reggae arrangements that takes you into the heart of Jamaica with a brighter sense of Jazz thanks to David Jackson’s soar. There’s some wah-wah gold, nods to the Trojan and the Island label, and heading into the UK underground scene between Brixton and Notting Hill Gate in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s.
‘Wondering’ closes the album off with a big bang with Tayler’s approach to the remix with the flute introduction coming left and right between your headphones, sending out this morse code before the rhythm section kicks in.
With its epic setting, Hammill details the ascending mountains as he sings; “There’s something I fear now drawing close/Could it be you?/Whose is that voice?/Is it now time to make a choice?/Ah! That Irrational Pain!/This ridiculous brain now bursts with joy/Could it be me?/Or could it be now?/Should I begin to take my vows?”
Esoteric has done it again when it comes to unleashing reissuing gems of albums that were often under the radar. But as I’ve mentioned earlier, giving Van der Graaf’s World Record the proper recognition it proudly deserves; it is time to give it a proper hand-shake and let it soar across the skies into the heavens.
