Peter Hammill ★★★ In Translation FIE!. CD/DL/LP

After over 50 solo LPs, Van Der Graaf Generator’s dark star releases first covers set.

An album of other people’s songs by this spikily individual vocalist was always going to mean more than a few Motown retreads.

And what an intriguingly eclectic set of tunes Peter Hammill has corralled – there’s a song by Mahler, Italian pop, tango, a weepie from South Pacific, and a red-blooded assault on Shirley Bassey’s showstopper I Who Have Nothing. His home studio arrangements can be skilful: Gabriel Fauré’s After

A Dream ends up sounding McCartney-ish. The mood generally drips Covid-induced world weariness – Weimar cabaret comes to Wessex. But Hammill’s voice, well to the fore, is not the supple instrument it was; to really enjoy this album you’ll have to forget versions of these songs variously interpreted by Frank Sinatra, José Carreras, Jessye Norman and other stellar voices. Hardcore fans will be sold on the passion, others may struggle. John Bungey