you either love him or hate him
a softer peter hammil on this one."...good friends" has to rank among his best songs ever imho.
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Youthful Power Meets Later Maturity
Those of us who love Peter Hammill have difficulty being objective, but I'll try. His early '70's albums are the best, having the backing of the mighty Van der Graaf Generator and a fresh wide-eyed quality that couldn't have possibly endured in an ouvre that now spans dozens of albums. His later albums show many flashes of this, but sometimes he attempted to play too many of the instruments himself. Sometimes he lost his songwriting brilliance. Later his voice got ragged, and later still he reinvented his voice in an older mellower manner (as on Fireships). But all his work is utterly worth listening to. "Patience" is from the early '80s when the world weariness had set in but he still had his fresh youthful voice and access to most of the Van der Graaf core. That makes "Patience" a unique crossroad in the Hammill discography and a great album. You should probably stay away from the first two songs until you've assimilated some of the others. Start with "Comfortable?".
