Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Pendragon
Label: Toff Records
Release: 1996
Running time: 75:45
Rating: 4.5/5
Pendragon, Britain’s champions of a melodic approach to neo-prog rock, created one of the finest moments of their whole career with »The Masquerade Overture«, their fifth studio outing. Their commercial standing was slowly starting to build around this time, especially in Central Europe and the former Warsaw Pact countries, while back home they were still doomed to obscurity. The band’s chief, guitar wizard and singer Nick Barrett, had just come off »The Window of Life« (1993), a very solid record but one weighed down by plenty of overly obvious sonic ties to certain seventies prog rock classics. So he decided to listen a bit less to the musical standards of the past and trust his own songwriting imagination a little more. That paid off for the sound of »The Masqureade Overture«, where individual sections come across as far more original, though you can still clearly tell which bands from prog rock’s ‘golden years’ shaped Nick’s songwriting style the most.
Barrett, who has always been the main creator of the music and lyrics, decided to squeeze every last drop out of the talent of his longtime keyboard partner in crime Clive Nolan (Arena, ex-Shadowland) while forging »The Masquerade Overture«. So it’s no surprise that the album features perhaps the best symphonic arrangements in the band’s whole story. The two splendid musical comrades are, as usual, the central architects of the complex harmonies and symphonic arrangements, while bassist Peter Gee and drummer Fudge Smith play important roles in crafting the varied rhythmic finesse.
»The Masquerade Overture«, like all Pendragon albums from the nineties, is marked by a distinctly positive, easygoing atmosphere. In that respect they always differed quite a bit from comparable new-wave prog rock bands, who leaned toward darker, ambient motifs. Barrett’s vocals are perhaps the key factor deciding whether you’ll like Pendragon or not, and they were never his strongest point. But that makes him all the better a guitarist, and under the strong influence of Dave Gilmour (Pink Floyd) he weaves and develops inventive variations and melancholic solos like it’s nothing. He complements Nolan’s keyboard kingdom brilliantly, and individual songs practically buckle under the weight of rich, symphonically minded arrangements. Pendragon have always been masters of infectious melodies, and this time is no exception.
The album opens with a sacred-tinged title instrumental, an orchestral, neoclassical appetizer with plenty of curtains of Mellotron waves and dramatic operatic vocal harmonies. In terms of ambience, the whole thing strongly recalls the score to some period drama about a classical composer with a tragic life story. As far as both lyrics and cheerful arrangements go, »As Good As Gold« positively melts with positivity, so at times it certainly feels a bit cheap. A line along the lines of ‘his mom always said he was good as gold’ would fit some traditionally corny American band better than eternally cynical Englishmen led by Mr. Nolan. Instrumentally, though, there’s nothing to fault in this song, because it’s a purely virtuoso fairy tale. Mighty keyboard variations are infused with subtle guitar passages in an exceptionally artful way, and the peak is the cheerful chorus with the aforementioned line.
The excellent epic »Paintbox«, thanks to its rustic-tinged symphonic arrangements, has a somewhat more traditional, ‘Victorian’ English mood in the style of the Genesis classic »The Musical Box«, while Barrett’s decently harmonized vocals slowly raise the drama. Subtle slide guitar passages further heighten the melancholic atmosphere, while the complex instrumental sections, ruled by Nolan’s gourmet keyboard solos, ensure the final triumph of epic grandeur. The short, slightly naive, piano-driven ballad »The Pursuit Of Excellence«, in which Barrett honors his ancestors who set off to work in America to put bread on the table (a theme he’d turned to in some earlier lyrics too), is another distinctly solemn and positive moment on the album.
The next epic, »Guardian Of My Soul«, is one of the album’s better achievements, packed with a series of complex yet melodic guitar variations and unexpected time changes. Thanks to its space rock atmosphere, created by subtle harmonies between slide guitar and piano, it’s a little reminiscent of some of the past works of the legendary Nektar. Organ variations soon build a bright, determined atmosphere which, together with an idealistic lyric not short on biblical references, pulls closest to something like Yes. Within the individual arrangements you can also pick up a few new wave elements carried straight over from the eighties. The solo duels between Barrett’s guitar and Nolan’s keyboard kingdom are once again a real feast for the ears. The whole atmosphere of this composition feels like a fairy tale or a fantasy journey, with brief nightmares along the way but a happy ending.
»The Shadow« opens like a piano elegy from the days of Oliver Twist or David Copperfield. Mighty orchestral arrangements on the Mellotron slowly build a solemn mood, while Barrett, with plenty of help from the backing vocals, does his best to craft the perfect drama. Eventually a romantic-pastoral ambience blossoms, with the acoustic guitar playing a big part, though once again it’s Nick’s guitar mastery and Nolan’s clever synth creations that stand out most. Nick may not be the most original guitarist in neo-prog rock, but he’s a true master of rich, melodically charged harmonies, which means he can tell a whole ‘story’ with a single solo. The triumphant finish of this love-and-fantasy song is in authentic, as-epic-as-it-gets Pendragon style.
The closing epic »Masters Of Illusion« also ranks among the album’s peaks, as it’s the culmination of all the best sonic traits of these English neo-prog champions. Once again they slowly build the drama in the opening part, followed by a sudden leap into a rhythmically complex section with plenty of turbulent, interlocking guitar-and-keyboard variations. Nolan’s synth passages sound a lot like an early version of Pendragon, or even early Marillion, a sound they would, understandably enough, try to distance themselves from as much as possible on future albums. In the closing section, in the style of Pink Floyd’s ‘golden age’, they also bring in female backing harmonies, which further improves and deepens the majestic atmosphere. They would repeat this practice on an even bigger scale on the next album, »Not Of This World« (2001). Even though the composition runs almost 13 minutes, there isn’t a single boring moment in it. Pendragon could never be faulted on that front, and the album wraps up in an almost ideal way.
With »The Masquerade Overture«, Pendragon created one of the highlights of their career. It’s their best effort of the three nineties studio albums. Nick, Clive, Peter and Fudge managed to somehow wriggle out from under the burden of the seventies prog legacy and make the record they’d wanted to make on the previous two studio outings, only to always come up short on songwriting individuality. The band’s popularity in Eastern Europe, especially in Poland, where they enjoy almost star status today, shot through the roof after »The Masqureade Overture«, while back home, like most of their neo-prog comrades, they sadly remained a ‘small’ and relatively obscure band.
Line-up
Nick Barrett – guitar, vocals
Clive Nolan – keyboards
Peter Gee – bass guitar
Fudge Smith – drums
GUEST VOCALISTS:
Tracy Hitchings – backing vocals
Tina Riley – backing vocals
Anthony Plowman – backing vocals
Gwen Ross – backing vocals
Simon Clew – backing vocals
Production
Pendragon
Track list
1. The Masquerade Overture (3:03)
2. As Good As Gold (7:15)
3. Paintbox (8:39)
4. The Pursuit Of Excellence (2:37)
5. Guardian Of My Soul (12:41)
6. The Shadow (9:55)
7. Masters Of Illusion (12:51)
