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                                  CD REVIEW

                       PENDRAGON: "THE WINDOW OF LIFE"

                              AM/FM RATING: 85%


PENDRAGON  is  a  band  who's  been in the business for a while - about 7 or 8
years,  at  least.  They play melodic soft-progressive and symphonic rock with
lots of atmosphere and feeling.  They've never hit it "big time" on MTV or the
charts,  but  this  is in my opinion not at all a draw-back for a band of this
type  -  rather  the  opposite!  My feeling is that once a band with their own
style  and  feeling  start to get big hits, they lose their identity and style
they  used  to  have,  and  start  to  fold  in  under  the  many wings of the
commercialism in the music industry.  This has happened to just too many bands
already.

For  those who don't know about Pendragon, they sound very much like Marillion
-  especially the early Marillion age.  Marillion has had much more success in
terms  of sale-numbers than Pendragon has.  This is probably because Marillion
have always had about 2-3 songs on each CD which has been "MTV-playable", i.e.
simple,  cheap  songs with are meant to be liked by a person within the limits
of  3 minutes.  On each album, Marillion have been sure to include a couple of
these  songs,  just  so they can be played on MTV and radio stations, and sell
much more.

Pendragon  have  never  done this.  They don't include easier, poppy, 3-minute
tracks on their albums - instead, they keep the symphonic/melodic and exciting
style  all  the  way  through  the albums, so in that respect, I actually find
Pendragon better than Marillion - they are really true to their style.

This  album  came out in late 1993, is of course their latest, and has lots of
*wonderful*  music.   In short, most of it sounds (style-wise) like one of the
older  Marillion-albums,  only  Pendragon  is  a  bit  softer.  The singer and
guitarist  Nick Barrett is simply a magician working his guitar.  Lovely, long
guitar  solos which might appeal to any one who likes some of the more intense
solos of Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits).

The   music   moves  up  and  down  in  moods,  beats  and  feelings,  like  a
roller-coaster.   Never  is  one  groove  or riff played for a long time, thus
making this a very exciting and rich album.

There are only 6 songs, but there are song-lengths like 9:12, 14:02 and so on,
so it's still a very long album - it plays for more than an hour.

If  you  like  Marillion,  but  have  never  heard  about  Pendragon, I warmly
recommend  that  you  take  a  close  listen to this CD and also other CD's by
Pendragon.   If you like Marillion, I think I can guarantee that you will also
like  Pendragon.   If  you  like  great  guitar  solos,  you  should  under no
circumstances miss this album!

Final verdict:  "Lovely soft-progressive/symphonic rock with great feeling and
the best guitar solos you could ever wish for".

AM/FM rating: 85%

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