Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other, The [Remastered] - Van Der Graaf Generator > Reviews > Robert Probabally Didn't Approve

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Thought-provoking
Quality and consistency of tracks	Mixed
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Average
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Glimpse Into early Brilliance
Disadvantages:	Not as Great as What Was To Come

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Yet another Van Der Graaf Generator re-issue from the newly resurrected Charisma Label. This Album is considered by the band and fans to be the 1st Van Der Graaf Generator album, the pervious album "The Areosol Grey Machine" was a Peter Hammill solo album and was only released under the VDGG name in order to free them from Mercury records, before they even started they had already been F***ed over by record companies, the question on my mind being how many artists and bands have never had their music see the light of day as a result of such record company shenagins.

Anyhow this progressive rock gem sitting my grubby mits is the wonderfully remastered (by Peter Hammill) version, which features the original artwork lovingly restored and a 16 page booklet. The booklet has the original sleeve notes by Peter which must make the poor man cringe to re-read something so obviously written by an rather earnest youth. There is also an extensive story about how the band got to this stage and the album as you world expect from a remastered album these days. The photos of the band are superb and they look rather like a herd of very scary geography, history and music teachers that dabble in folk music, especially drummer Guy Evans who looks like a psychotic hippy PE teacher. This was the 1960's and it was perfectly acceptable for bands to look like this. This album is no hippy love trip dude. There are also two extra tracks which I will come to later so don't get your panties in a bunch about that.

The first track on the Album Darkness (11/11) is a rocky blast of general darkness like a piece of Edgar Allen Poe gone wrong. David Jackson's sax drags grooves in a sinister and dark way through the song adding texture and emphasis to the bits where they are needed, and Hugh Banton's Organ solo gives an indication of the future path of highly scary organ sounds that the band were going to traverse. Listening to it now brings back memories of the first time I heard it, I was stomping along Union Street in Aberdeen with a head full of lidocane and a mouth full of blood after a visit to the dentist. Such things should not have been experienced by such a young and fragile mind. Refugees is considered by many to be one of their classic pieces but after the stomping of the previous track it has always been a bit too mellow for me, but this is followed by "White Hammer". This is a song about the inquisition and the effect one book had on it. That book was the "Malleus Maleficarium" and this song is wonderfully dark and youthful, it is chunky and funky with a truly sinister organ sound. Peter Hammill has said that this is one of the songs he will not be singing during their re-union tour possibly due to the fact that he could not do it with a straight face anymore, but I still love it.

"Whatever Would Robert Have Said?" is in part a reference to Robert Van De Graff the inventor of the Van De Graff Generator. This song transverses through fairly existential territory and is probably the most typical VDGG track on the album with simultaneous twin sax playing and scary organ sounds, and superb vocal harmonies. It also has some great atypical fuzz guitar work. Shifting time, tempo and melody changes make it a challenging listen, and I am back trying to get a bus home with blood running down my chin, stuff this I'll just walk back to sandylands drive. "Out of My Book" again is too mellow for me, however at the end we come to "After The Flood" which is a dark existential grove exposing the bands future direction as a drums, organ and sax band, and at times if follows a fairly experimental path, a triumphant display of the bands abilities and future direction.

The remastered version contains two extra tracks "Boat of Millions Of Years" which is like gold dust to fans and the single version of "Refugees" which would be gold dust to me if I liked the song.

I always looked on this first VDGG album as a statement of intent, even though it is a great piece it is more of an introduction to the direction they were going rather than being an indispensable recording. This is the one album of theirs that I would not recommend to anyone other than rabid fans as it does not show then in full flow on insane greatness.