''Pure'' is the eighth studio album by English

neo-progressive rock Neo-progressive rock (also known as neo-prog) is a genre, subgenre of progressive rock which developed in the UK in the early 1980s. The genre's most popular band, Marillion, achieved mainstream success in the decade. Several bands from the genre ...

group

Pendragon Pendragon or ( wlm, pen dreic, ''pen dragon''; composed of Welsh , 'head, chief, top' and / '' dragon'', 'dragon; warrior'; borrowed from the Latin word , plural , 'dragon , br, Penn Aerouant) literally means 'chief dragon' or 'head dragon', bu ...

. It was first released on October 1, 2008, as a regular edition on Toff Records, the band's own imprint, and reissued on March 14, 2011, as a special CD+DVD edition in rigid digi book through Madfish, a division label of

Snapper Music Snapper Music is an independent record label founded in 1996 by former head of Castle Communications Jon Beecher, Dougie Dudgeon and funded by Mark Levinson from Palan Music Publishing. In 1999, Snapper broke away from its Palan parent company ...

. The DVD in the new special packaging has an 1hr. 24min. footage titled 'Handy-Cam Progumentary', recorded by the band themselves.

Reception

The overall reception of the album was very much positive. In a round table review, DPRP embraced the album with acclaim words such as "it brims with great ideas, is full of surprises and sees the band at the very top of their game" (Gareth Long, 9.5 out of 10), "this album is proof of the fact that Pendragon is still one of the top progressive rock bands and with this album they are not just standing ground they are gaining new" (Dries Dokter, 9 out of 10), "Pure is a very good album and stepped up to be my new favourite Pendragon album, I never thought that this would happen" (Edwin Roosjen, 9.5 out of 10). RevelationZ online magazine gave it a 7 out of 10 score and stressed "mainman - vocalist & guitarist - Nick Barrett's songs draw blood with razor sharp metaphors, often bleak but always human, cleverly broken up by melodic, muscular guitar and keyboard passages, set against a busy, but never intrusive background of whitenoise and special FX". Lords of Metal also paid attention to the album and noticed that "where Marillion drifted off of the ‘standard’ prog route Pendragon stayed steadily on course without repeating themselves", concluding with a 90/100 score. In a 9.5 out of 10 review, The Metal Observer writes: "Pendragon usually are labeled as 'Neo-Prog', but on Pure they are giving themselves heavier than ever in some passages and more intense and emotional in others, creating a highly addictive juxtaposition that makes them stand out from their peers" and "everything together results in a departure from their old sound". ''

Classic Rock Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, primar ...

'' magazine described it as "Pendragon’s finest hour so far without a doubt" and was voted "Album Of The Year" by its readers, at the same time

Blogcritics Blogcritics is a blog network and online magazine of news and opinion. The site was founded in 2002 by Eric Olsen and Phillip Winn. Blogcritics features more than 100 original articles every week, and maintains an archive of all its published con ...

vindicates "this album is so good it just had to be done".http://blogcritics.org/music/article/music-review-pendragon-pure/

Track listing

All songs written by Nick Barrett.

Regular edition

# "Indigo" – 13:44 # "Eraserhead" – 9:05 # "Comatose (I. View From The Seashore)" – 7:41 # "Comatose (II. Space Cadet)" – 4:02 # "Comatose (III. Home and Dry)" – 5:55 # "The Freak Show" - 4:26 # "It's Only Me" - 8:16

CD+DVD edition

CD

The same track list as the regular edition.

DVD

* "Handy-Cam Progumentary"

Personnel

* Nick Barrett -

guitars The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

lead vocals The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of t ...

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

, programming * Clive Nolan - keyboards,

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are use ...

* Peter Gee - bass * Scott Higham -

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

, backing vocals

References

External links

Pendragon's official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pure (Pendragon Album) 2008 albums 2011 albums Pendragon (band) albums Snapper Music albums Albums produced by Karl Groom