PENDRAGON — Kowtow (review)

Album · 1988 · Non-Metal

4/5 · 2021-11-04
Warthur

Of Pendragon's two studio albums from the 1980s, Kowtow often gets short shrift compared with The Jewel, and it's easy to see why; the first side consists of a series of poppy songs that really should be classed more as melodic rock than progressive or neo-prog, and it's easy to think that Pendragon are selling out and not being true to themselves.

That's particularly true of Saved By You, the album's opener - but I was surprised to discover (and discogs.com confirms) that this originally wasn't on the album, and indeed wasn't even recorded when the first vinyl version of Kowtow was released in 1988. As it transpires, Kowtow was actually originally a demo - an extremely well-crafted demo, but a demo nonetheless - recorded by the band in 1987 as their last serious bid to get a contract with EMI.

When that fell through, Pendragon decided to make their own indie label - much as IQ and Marillion would do in subsequent years - and Kowtow became one of their first releases on Toff Records, initially in a configuration omitting Saved By You but with that track added in later versions.

Personally, I think the first side of the album isn't well served by adding Saved By You; as well as hailing from different sessions from the rest of the album, it also has enough of a different mood that its inclusion makes the proceedings feel jarring. Trim it off, and the songs on the first side start tending more towards the slower, more emotional numbers like 2AM; the material won't scratch your prog itch, but if you are into competently executed and emotionally sincere melodic rock you could do a lot worse (though arguably also a lot better).

Overall, these songs represent a natural evolution of the poppier side of the band's music. At the end of the first side Total Recall introduces a string of songs in a more neo-prog style. The thing which initially threw me about this song and much of the second side is that, while they're mostly neo-prog compositions, they're not *Pendragon* compositions in style - they seem, in fact, to have been written in imitation of Marillion's output at the time. The Haunting sounds like an off-cut from the Clutching At Straws sessions, Solid Heart reminds me a *lot* of the rousing White Feather closer from Misplaced Childhood, and Kowtow is extremely reminiscent of Fugazi - it even has similarly Vietnam-tinged lyrics! (Speaking of the lyrics, incidentally, on these neo-prog compositions they seem to have been written in the style of Fish, and Nick tries to deliver them in a similar manner, which seems unnatural for him.)

Still, whilst Kowtow is not a classic Pendragon album, neither capturing their classic early style or the 1990s stylistic shift inaugurated on The World which would see them attain cult success, it's also an album which I don't think is all that much worse than their other early works and which I think is badly underrated, partially due to the ill-advised inclusion of bonus tracks.

Historically speaking it's an important album both to Pendragon and the neo-prog scene as a whole; after all, if a supposed demo album could sound this good, the question of "Do we need the major labels anyway?" becomes all the sharper, and as the release which established Toff Records as a viable publishing entity, a vital step in laying the groundwork for Pendragon's renaissance in the 1990s - and also an important model for other major players on the scene at the time. (Would IQ have set up Giant Electric Pea if Pendragon hadn't already made headway with Toff? Would Marillion have set up Racket or pioneered crowdfunding to the extent that they did, had Pendragon and IQ not already shown that independent labels with high levels of fan engagement via the Internet were a viable model?)

Musically speaking, the more prog-purist fans will likely find Kowtow to be weaker than both the Jewel it followed and the World that followed it, but I find that there's more here than an initial listen might make apparent - especially on the excellent recent remaster. If you've given Kowtow a try before, weren't sure about it, but are curious to give it another try, you might try experimenting with skipping Saved By You and starting your listening experience with The Mask, the original album opener. As fun and energetic as Saved By You is, it sets entirely the wrong mood for the rest of the album, which I'm fairly sure was a major stumbling block for me on previous listens. At the same time, if you feel that Pendragon just didn't get it together until they put out The World - and I have some respect for that view - Kowtow is unlikely to change your mind, steeped as it is in their 1980s attempts at pop.