Van der Graaf Generator- After the Flood REACTION & REVIEW
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- Опубликовано: 14 янв 2025
- Song Link: • After The Flood (2005 ...
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I still shiver when the Dalek 'Annihilation' bit comes in. I don't mind admitting I was quite scared of the Daleks when I was a little 7 year old in the sixties! Best track on the album.
ExterminatioOOOOOOoooOOOOoooooooOOOOOOoooOOON!
Well, a lot to say about this one.
1. Have you wonder how many songs on vdgg have death as main theme? Be it by catastrophies or by existencial death? And there is also a close relation with physics or chemistry. Scorched Earth, Aquarian, After the Flood, Pioneers Over C. H to He... Cause Hammill studied those sciences, perhaps.
2. That quote on Einstein (I didn't know that!) is with me ever since my first listens of this song.
Again:
"Every step appears to be the unavoidable consequence of the preceeding one."
How premonitory, isn't it?
Mankind is dying in waves, not at once, but each time an natural-man-made/-aided event comes an crushes a small part of us. By tsunamis (well, Fukushima - do we remember? Is it forgotten? - suffered with that), but mostly by the lost of humid areas, habitats, drought, water and air and soil pollution.
The mistakes we made we are paying it. At last. We're in the middle of the end, as Peter sings.
3. I agree with you, Justin : this is a kind of prequel of Lighthouse, in the messy and chaotic troubled action it displays, and in that instrumental part it is very close to "The Cloth Thickens" part.
3.1 - I think this song is in the middle of a path started with "Aquarian" - "now we move to the sun in every direction" (see? Another quote on catastrophic event. I always interpretered it as the global warming, but maybe - who knows? - Peter was talking to space discovery carried to the upper consequences.
3.2 - But if in "Aquarian" the mood is a positive one, a joyful and hope in mankind abilities to conquer nature, in "After the Flood" mankind is perhaps paying the bill of misusing it's power.
4. If you pay attention, they make a little musical quote on KC's "21th Century Schizoid Man", and it fits perfectly, because the subject in question.
4.1. - Have you also noticed the quote they did - I did not check who is quoting who - putting a bit, a small little byte, of "The Knife" (Genesis) on "White Hammer"? C'mon! Aren't they also related? Knife and Hammer, to kill?
Another small curiosity, before Peter sings that Einstein quotation we can hear his voice in the demo, maybe from his headphones while recording. It's not that difficult to hear it.
Now, just relax, Justin. There's another one before this Lp. Take your time.
I think you’d really LOVE A Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome by vdgg and then A Black Box by Peter Hammill. Peak lyrics and amazing instrumentation. AQZ/TPD is currently my favorite vdgg album
Standout tracks for me on AQZ/TPD were Lizard Play, The Habit Of The Broken Heart, The Sphinx in The Face, Chemical World and Door, and standout tracks from A Black Box would be Golden Promises, Losing Faith In Words, Fogwalking, and Flight
I call this song "The Happy Apocalypse" song and whenever i hear it, I imagine it being played at a Greenpeace or similar convention, with everyone rocking out or vibing to it :D
🤣
The Einstein quote is about the arms race. Einstein felt responsible for writing his letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt (which he was persuaded to do by fellow physicists Leo Szilard and Edward Teller; Teller later led the team that built the first hydrogen bomb) suggesting to him that the USA should build an atom bomb because it looked as if the Germans were about to build one. Of course the name Einstein weighed a lot more than the names Szilard and Teller. When Roosevelt read this letter he said: "This means we have to act".
When the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Einstein felt responsible for this; he used to say "I pressed the button". He spent the rest of his life trying to stop the arms race; he was about to write a letter to famous mathematician Bertrand Russell, with whom he had started a disarmament movement, when he died of a burst aneurysm.
Thank you for this!
Would we being discussing history and ethics with other band (say, like Coldplay or the likes)?
This has always been in my top 3 Van Der Graaf albums. I also love H to He.
'After The Flood' also is the title of one of my favourite Talk Talk songs 😊 And this my first time listening to Van der Graaf Generator - despite having known them by name forever! 😅
Btw the object on the album cover is a van der Graaf generator.
I see most of vdgg’s music to be referring to many aspects of reality/life/psychology/yin and yang. The flood could be seen on many levels. A flood is a chain reaction of countless water particles bumping together, flowing in an unpredictable, chaotic way, while simultaneously causing so much destruction, and causing such change in life, that it becomes inseparable from every moment after. Each moment consumes the last, and is consumed by the next the moment it hatches, and somewhere in all that mix is us, anchors of light and love surrounded by the chaos, uncertain if the light will find a way, in terror but also immense awe and inspiration as the unfolding of events continues to trip over us and remind us of what it means to be here, right now, still alive, seeking a higher peace of existence in every nook and cranny.
A valid interpretation, thank you. Never thought of it like that. 😀
This side of VdGG was hugely influential on Fish and early Marillion.
If they would’ve taken one less “And when the water falls again” verse and redid how they did the “ANNIHILATIOOOOOON” part I think it might’ve been one of their top tracks
Hi JP, you are my favourite 'reactor' after Sizewell B, probably because of your mostly favourable reactions to my favourite band VDDG/Peter Hammill and because you bring intelligence and thoughtfulness to them. As you only have 1 album left now from the bands initial 60's and 70's stint, I thought I would just inform you, in case you didn't already know, that the band reformed again around 2004 and released an album (Present ) in 2005 followed by 3 more in 2008, 2011 and 2016.
There are some incredibly good songs spread across the 4 albums so I hope you manage to get around to them eventually along with Peter Hammill albums such as Fools Mate which is a wonderful collection of short songs, and Nadirs Big Chance.
VDGG FFS!
Thank you Stephen :)
Hi Justin, nice review as always. "The Least We Can Do" is my favourite VDGG record, because I think that every song is really good, plus Refugees, After The Flood and White Hammer, three masterpieces. Second place: Pawn Hearts, I like all the songs even here (Man-Erg...❤omg!!!) but few sections of Plague are simply "ok" for me, nothing more. Then, third place: H To He. Another masterpiece from "Killer" to "Lost" (my personal favourite song by the band)...unfortunately I don't like very much the last song, Pioneers Over c.", too long and a little boring in some ways, imo. Without Pioneers, H to He would be my favourite album for sure, but...
I consider Peter Hammill the most evocative singer of the entire prog scene but I admit that I have some problem with Peter's vocals after Pawn Hearts. From Godbluff his voice changes a lot... it's so full of uncontrolled angry. For sure Godbluff and Still Life are very good, but I prefer the early albums.
Definitive imho the most interesting and original band of prog, with Genesis (Gabriel's era) KC and Gentle Giant.
One of my favorite tunes belt out bellowingly along with.
"After the Flood", over the dam, No water did pour, unable to turn the Van der Graaf Generator. No power, no more, that's for sure.😁✌&❤
I think I would have Pawn Hearts, Godbluff, Still Life. H to He, World Record and Vital ahead of this one, in that order but it's still a good record even if it's the first probes into the then unknown wilder reaches of music. (Aerosol Grey Machine was of course their debut album but was originally intended as a PH solo and isn't quite up to scratch)
It's Potter Fender bass!
Top 5 VDGG track for me!
Hey JP, how about you finish this album with "The Boat Of Millions Of Years" which was released as a single in 1970 ? It's a great piece of music.
I was going to suggest the same thing! Great song. It was the B side to Refugees.
Strongly seconded! One of my favorites.
and er..... Thirded (if there is such a term - possibly not!) - this wasn't on the vinyl release of the LP (I knew the song from the compilation 68 -71) but it was included on the CD version which helped my decision to purchase of this LP.
Fourthed. It's on my version of this album, I didn't realize it wasn't on the original release.
Yeah, that one is about the sun, if I remember. That's how the Egyptians called the sun.
That's easy for me to rank vdgg albums, just take a look at it:
Improving from Aerosol to Pawn Hearts, looking down, but standing tall in Goodbluf and still Life and downwards from then on.
Vital is perhaps better than Godbluff, but it's different, it's a live album. They needed to show how power they had on stage.
Just step to Chameleon and in Camera, do you?
Hijacked to the track with the same title on Talk Talk's 1991 album, "Laughing Stock".
And then there is this. Just not me atm.... hmm got better as it went.
That was great! (Maybe I just like chaos?)
At that one point where you noted the strange effect, to me he sounded like a Dalek. "Seek! Locate! Ex.ter.minate!!" (From Dr. Who, just in case that means nowt to you.)
A properly politically incorrect way of referring to that would be with *Spike Milligan's* sketch about *Pakistani Daleks* ruclips.net/video/C0n88tZQc4Q/видео.html
*The Angels* had a song that's not quite explicitly a flood song, but it's near enough: *After the Rain* ruclips.net/video/7-zPbkWUCl4/видео.html
(Good demonstration of how to be a front man, if nothing else.)
Titter! So funny.
While he's probably not as Peter Hammill inspired as Doc Neeson probably was, dUg Pinnick's current opinion is that the powers that be should just get on with it, and let it rain. ruclips.net/video/bkIc8YFnjl4/видео.html
Talking politically incorrect Daleks, did you ever watch TV Offal ? If not, it was one of the late Victor Lewis-Smith's shows. Search The Gay Daleks if you fancy a peek 'Exsperminate, Exsperminate, white wee-wee' 😃
@@jfergs.3302 Thanks. :D Ex.sperminate! The Turdis took me back in time. It was very rude, but I guffawed, nonetheless. Now to get back to the 22nd Century. Does anyone know what star the humans have moved to now?
I don't like the abrupt transitions of the multiple sections that make up this piece. It's anything but fluid and natural. I only keep from this album its first two tracks, "Darkness (11/11)" and "Refugees".
Yeah their debut is patchy as hell.
What about White Hammer. It’s a monstrous track, in a good way.
I’d say I definitely felt that way at first but it’s my #4 favorite vdgg album now. I guess my mind connects the gaps a lot easier now or something
Just another masterpiece by VDGG, but most of them are 😅
Didn't do much for me. Peter is a much better lyricist than the evidence on this song might suggest. As for the music, it never really got going. A bit of an anti-climax. But I enjoyed tracks #1 and #5 tremendously, whilst #4 was a decent dress rehearsal for the greatness soon to follow. This was a journey I'm glad I took once again. Looking forward to Aerosol Grey Machine at some point in the future.
This songs outtro is incredible.