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Translation
Records
(photo headline)
Rock
For Grey Days
Peter Hammill - "In A Foreign Town", Virgin Records
Made by Halicon. ENVLPS12
Another album from Peter Hammill and
it's hard to withstand the endless flow of his records. Hammill, who talks
about the will to change and about his intentions of moving forward,
actually keeps standing in place. Hammill, who influenced new wave artists,
who denied the constant routine of rock'n'roll stars, who never achieved
commercial popularity, is also the Hammill of the emotions, and the pain.
Now with "In A Foreign Town" he picks up from where he stopped, adding minor
moments with outburst angst without a curb. The live Hammill, of Van Der
Graaf, connected with the studio Hammill, and the connection between them
gives us "In A Foreign Town", and also "Skin", "Sitting Targets", "The
Future Now", "Patience" and "A Black Box". Hammill suffers and suffers good.
He was blamed by ego-mania, so now he suffers the suffer of the world:
nuclear wars and secret polices ("Hemlock"), money, burse and capitalist
regimes ("Sci-Finance revisited"), religion, mystics and broken loves ("This
Book"), memories time and past ("Time To Burn"), endless travels and lack of
hope ("Auto"), politicians and political publicity ("Vote Brand X"),
Shakespeare and the self search ("The Play Is The Thing").
And after he scatters all of these in a typical mix of screams and
mutterings, he finishes in a shrieking grand finale of total destruction, in
the pessimistic song "under cover names" that lives no hope for the future.
This is Peter Hammill. If that's good or not will decide the judges of the
suffering artist, who adds healing with writing, melody with sufferings. If
to hear then only on dark days. Hammill connects to them.
Translated by Ilan Segal
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