The band's fourth album, Pawn Hearts, arrived as a dense, often forbidding statement of intent. It remains their most famous work, despite its commercial failure.
- Pawn Hearts was recorded in a mere six days at Trident Studios in London. It was the only album by the band released in its entirety before their temporary split in 1972. Richard Williams of Melody Maker cited it as the best album of 1971.
- Despite a lack of singles and any chart success, Pawn Hearts became a foundational text of progressive rock. The album was a critical success in Italy, where it reached number one on the charts.
- The album's title is a reference to a line in T.S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land: "I should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas."
Van der Graaf Generator were a British progressive rock band formed in 1967. They were known for their challenging, experimental sound and Peter Hammill's distinctive vocals. By 1971, the band had weathered significant lineup changes and were establishing their unique place in the UK prog rock scene.
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