Well it did take a bit of time, a dive into a new Peter Hammill can’t be rushed, here’s a thought or two on it, I guess you could just cut to the chase and the closing paragraph…
Peter Hammill – Tears in Time (Esoteric) – Do we really need to write another who is Peter Hammill piece? We’ve written so so many over the now forty year life span of this Organ thing, (so much water under our bridges, so much led in the lake, so many gigs in so many places). To most he might, even now, still feel like a well kept secret (“who was that rather impressive man at the Proms the other day? Was that someone you go on about?!). Peter Hammill might, even now, still feel like a well kept secret to most, he might feel like an almost private indulgence and now and again something or someone to turn to get us through the doldrum years or the never giving in to original sin maybe? To most he is who? To some his work is everything, there is no real in between,,,
A new album? How many has he made now? Something like forty-one solo and collaborative studio albums, alongside thirteen live albums and numerous works as the frontman of Van der Graaf Generator (or so a lazy question reveals) and try as we might, we can never quite get enough, even what the rainy days come and find us, even on the days when he can be tough to get through and that bus might be crushing down on us along with all those sticks and stones and all those broken bones, those heavy weather days, don’t say that you haven’t been warned, this is a tough one…
“Peter Hammill, the founding member and unmistakable voice of the legendary Van der Graaf Generator, returns with Tears In Time, a superb new album and his first new work in five years. A collection of eleven unique, reflective songs recorded at various locations between 1991 and 2026, the album stands as a deeply personal and compelling new statement from one of Britain’s most singular musical voices” so the press release proclaims. New work or collection of things gathered together? The press release doesn’t actually
She’s all fur coat and no knickers, that might not be good for your ticker… did he finally, after all these years, finally jump the shark? Or was it just Peter’s humour? Or maybe Rikki’s? Is Rikki still around and if so has he seen Mike or Sue?) Are the cards being dealt from the bottom of the pack? Have I tried to write about Peter Hammill too many times? And there he goes, asking (or singing), asking if there is anything left to say?
“Across more than five decades, Hammill has built an extraordinary body of work that has continually challenged expectations while remaining emotionally direct, intellectually searching and artistically fearless. First emerging as the driving force behind Van der Graaf Generator, he helped define a more adventurous and uncompromising edge of progressive music, creating a catalogue that remains hugely influential. Alongside that work, he has sustained a remarkable solo career that has seen him explore everything from fierce, experimental rock and intimate piano-led confessionals to electronic abstraction, chamber-like atmospheres and profound, late-period reflection…”
Yes, you are right, using the press release is lazy of me, but then, sometimes you forget than not everyone knows and you don’t feel like repeating yourself again and recalling that gig in the small theatre in the mid 80s when Bowie, Lydon, Fish and Bruce Dickenson were all sitting there in silence if the intimate space taking mental notes with the rest of us yet again. The battle to find the words and you just want to get lost in all and where he’s going and are we going to stay in the shallows or in the eyes of his storms and the heavy weather that’s on the way. And it is at times (very) heavy weather, this time is really does feel like heavy Weather and gangsters everywhere, moral vacumes and holding on hoping for the best, holding on hoping for the words to come (in response to his words), waiting for the corners that you can’t swerve, some of this is Peter at his (dare I say) gloomiest!
And you listen to it once more, and then you listen to it again and you start to maybe consider that at long long last he’s made an album that you just can’t get into and that all his car crashes and being under wheels of that bus whichever way you fall, you start to think that it might all be too much (and that’s before we get to the one about the dog!), that you might at last be lost for words and that at last a Peter Hammill album that, however naked and on the floor you might get, you can’t get into it… although, actually this song about the bus wheel is rather good, and I missed that bit last time and yeah, and that one about the rainy day, that one is really really good now I think about it, it hard going but this song now, this one, this song and the way his dice are thrown, this is a really strong song, and oh, where has it all gone and hang on, that’s a mean riff, a sneaky one, subtle, and those red flags in the sunset (and another Tab Hunter reference?) and it is starting to corner me…
You know what, I don’t know why I couldn’t get into this last week and why it wasn’t quite working last Tuesday when I tried and was I just nor paying enough intention? I am really starting to really really like this now, and who was it in the fur coat, is wasn’t all it initially seemed and these songs are really your friends, you do need to remember all the damns you need to give…. actually is this feeling a touch cathartic, do Peter Hammill songs ever feel cathartic? Did I blink too early in the eye of the storm? Hang on, what’s my neighbour doing now? What is she shouting about?
“That solo journey has been marked by a restless commitment to invention. In 1992, Hammill established his own Fie! label to release and curate his independent work, beginning with the acclaimed Fireships, a more introspective collection that earned widespread praise for songs such as I Will Find You, Curtains and Gaia. A year later he revealed a more rock-oriented side with The Noise, further underlining the breadth and unpredictability of his songwriting. Since then, Hammill has continued to pursue a unique creative path, producing work that is never static, never complacent, and always unmistakably his own. Tears In Time continues that tradition with quiet authority. Drawing together recordings made over an extended span of years, the album carries a rare sense of depth and perspective, its eleven songs shaped by memory, experience and reflection…”
And I guess I should be trying to work out which songs are from then and which ones did he make just now? But that’s the thing, he only just pulled this collection together, it is surely all now, surely it doesn’t matter which song he wrote this year and which one he went back and dug out. Surely this is what Peter Hammill choses to present right now, it doesn’t matter when he wrote and recorded each piece? This is his latest exhibition, this is his current ground gently shaking. Tears In Time is his here and now and as he says himself; “These songs have been a long time in the gestation and making. I’m pleased with the way they’ve worked out. They seem to hang together as a group, even though there’s a wide range of styles represented here. I’ve not stopped yet and I’m very happy that songs still seem to find their way into my hands.”
This is an album that works, it takes time to let you know, give it the time though and you will find that Tears In Time really does work as one whole thing (and that working as one whole thing is important when an album has been put together like this). It could so easily have been all over the place, it could have been full of good songs and still failed as one body of work, it doesn’t. This is an album that needs time, it will workout, it might be touch and go to start with, you might barely hang on to it, it isn’t one of those immediately accesible things, these aren’t songs that want to reveal everything straight away, hang on to the angles of their curves. And yes, I am a fan boy, I have said it many times, he can’t do any wrong in my eyes but I did struggle with this one at first, I did have to come back to it a few times (true, I have had a few personal things going on, he does manage to touch these things, the loss of people and touch). I did think maybe I’ll just leave it this time and who really cares what I have to say anyway. I’ll admit didn’t like it at first, that I’ve turned it off at least three or four times, put it away and saved it for a rainy day (when it still hasn’t rained in this part of London for almost two months now, and save for an hour the other night, here we are in an August dust bowl of a tinderbox listing to songs about rain coming and heavy weather) and he may say there isn’t much left to say but the penny is dropping now and anyway there is clearly so much left to say, and well it has taken a few weeks but now and it had been at odds with my own torpid state and those wheels and settling the accounts, it has taken longer than a Peter Hammill album usually does but now I find myself coming back to it and wanting to just listen to it and really his tanks are nowhere near empty and this isn’t anywhere near burning on reserve.
Actually he didn’t jump the shark, he just hadn’t revealed it all back then, that line about the fur coat makes perfect sense now, or at least it is starting to and there is so much water, so much water under the bridge. Some of this is really elegant once you do get in to it. It is a dark one, even by his standards, his blurred wax and wane, it is heavy weather, these are not pop songs!
And now I think about it, On a Rainy Day might just be one of his very best…
The long and short of it is that this is a damn good album, an excellent body of work, a well put together collection, you need to give it time though, you need to work on it, you need to put in the effort at your end, you need to give it your commitment. You can’t just listen, you have to let yourself absorb it, you need to let it work a way in, let it reveal itself, let those songs catch you, let those words play in that way only his words do. that way that voice and his works and his rather unique way of putting things do. Give it time or you will never know, don’t just listen to it once and then put it to the side.
Actually I don’t know if ‘like’ is the right word? But now I have lived with it for a month or so, this is an excellent body of work, as full of nuance, with that atmosphere as ever and surely something way beyond what is reasonable to expect? This is his now, this is our now, it looks both backwards and forwards, and when it comes to it Tears In Time feels as vital as anything Peter Hammill has made, some of it maybe even beautifully so. And now that I have finally written some words, I need to go live with it and… (sw)
Tears in Time is out on 25th September 2026 on CD / Vinyl and Digital – Order details
Track Listing – For A Rainy Day / The Wheels / Heavy Weather / Angle Of The Curve / So Much Water / Tabula Rasa / Oh The End / Red Flags (In The Sunset) / You’ll Never Know / The Half Of It / And When He Ran
Previously on these pages
Oh there’s loads more – go use the search engine for all your Peter Hammill and Van Der Graaf Generator
THE ORGAN 