Track Listing

1. Darkness
2. Refugees
3. White Hammer
4. Whatever Would Robert Have Said
5. Out Of My Book
6. After The Flood

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #206260 in Music
• Released on: 1988-05-17
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Glorious, Awe-Inspiring and Beautiful Music
"Day dawns dark... it now numbers infinity". These lyrics are embedded in my soul having listened to this album every few months since I bought the original vinyl copy back in 1969.
This album is (IMHO) better than the equivalent (and equally superb) Court of the Crimson King. But only just. It has the same mix of majestic classical-tinged riffs and melodic acoustic tracks. Darkness 11/11 has one of the most spine-tingling introductions - howling wind and then gothic organ and bass notes peering out of the Dark - and then on and on up the trade-mark spiral of VDGG barely-controlled chaos. But the musicians are (as Guy Evans said) telepathic in their co-ordination. Just stunning. Followed by the "take a breather before the onslaught continues" delicious Refugees - a song of such beauty and longing - on a par with the more pastoral tracks on Atom Heart Mother. Then you are bludgeoned (literally and lyrically) with the White Hammer and the following tracks until "After the Flood" which has my all time favourite Bass Riff [still brings a tingle down the spine] - coming after some gentle (?) acoustic guitar chords, until the band finally sweeps in and roars off into the distance.
It is suggested by some that "H to He" or "Pawn Hearts" were better albums, but the Least We Can Do (perhaps because this was my first introduction to VDGG at an early and impressionable age) has remained my all-time favourite - of ALL albums, even considering the magnificent Atom Heart Mother, the Yes Album, the above mentioned CotCC, not to mention Tull's Aqualung, or Colosseum's Valentye Suite.

Shockingly good (sorry about that)
Van der Graaf Generator (VdGG) were one of the loudest bands of the early prog rock movement, though that ear-shredding volume doesn't translate well into their studio albums, which were far more restrained, reflecting a dynamic typical of its day -- screeching loud electric anthems alternating with quiet pastoral interludes. Think of the first King Crimson album and you've got it nailed -- VdGG's second album "Least We Can Do..." and third "He to He" are both pretty much based on that model.

That's not to say VdGG were simply a King Crimson clone, even with the appearance of Robert Fripp guesting on guitar on several tracks. Hammill's songwriting, for a start, is better than anything managed by any of Fripp's configurations. Also, VdGG managed the loud/soft fury/reflection dichotomy better than Crimson, and whereas you only put on a Crimson album to be battered into submission, you can actually play VdGG albums for pleasure.

But Hammill's future shock is ever bit as scarifying as "21st Century Schizoid Man". The standout track here is the opener, "Darkness", as musically devastating as having six inch nails driven into your skull -- Hammill's shrieking vocals matched by David Jackson's howling saxophones, set against Hugh Banton's church organ, the whole thing fed through a loudspeaker made of sandpaper with drawing pins glued all over it. Like "Pioneers Over c" on "H to He", this is psychedelic panic over which Hammill spits out lyrics dealing with numerology, the occult (a recurring theme) and the impossibility of free will. That it was written on Remembrance Day (11/11) adds extra weight. It's dark, devastating stuff: "Darkness" is probably the most powerful single statement in the whole of prog rock.

The rest of the album isn't quite up to this level. Just as "H to He" begins with a bang and ends with a whimper, "Least We Can Do" trades the sonic self-mutilation of "Darkness" for folk song and meandering organ solos. "Refugees" is a pretty, if over-long lament of parting which made a much better single (check it out on "I Prophesy Disaster") while "Out Of My Book" is an even gentler love song, as well as another memorium, a moment of peace in the midst of the inferno. "White Hammer" -- concerned with the Inquisition, and one of the few Hammill songs divorced of emotional resonance -- seems designed merely to beat you around the head. "Whatever Would Robert Have Said?" features some of Hammill's most venomous vocals, which is saying something.

However, the album hiccups badly at the end, since "After The Flood" is too contrived even for this most arty of art rock bands. Here Hammill's interest in science fiction gets the better of him. In the future the earth's axis of rotation is disturbed by meddling humanity, the ice caps melt and all land-living creatures are drowned. Finally the poles reassert themselves, the ice reforms, but there's nobody left to witness it. The quotation from Einstein in the middle simply overeggs the pudding.

For all its faults, this is an incredible album, more powerful and more musically inventive than any unknown band had the right to be even in those most creative years of British rock. Part of the success must stem from the involvement of David Jackson, but Hammill's achievement is undeniable. His liner-notes on the original LP gatefold (not included with the CD) explain the title, which comes from John Minton -- "We're all awash in a sea of blood, and the least we can do is wave to each other" -- as well as giving a few warnings: "Don't listen when you're angry, because you'll smash something. Don't listen when you're depressed, because you'll get more so." Today's listener should be just as careful, since if there's one thing VdGG's music is bound to do, that's get inside your head.

A very good progressive rock album.
A much more coherent effort than their first album, this was both the starting point for the classic VDGG sound and their most commercially succesful album in the UK.

"Darkness" and "After The Flood" have much of the characterstics that would define them later on. Banton's organ textures, Jackson's sax solos and Hammill's vocals ranging from the ethereal to the savage and most things in between.

"Refugees" is a more gentle ballad, and "Whatever Would Robert Have Said?" is a homage to the band's inspiration: Robert Van De Graaff, inventor of the real Van De Graaff Generator. (Note the differences in spelling.)