Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
It is one of the great tragedies of life that not all that is created by an artist sees the light of day, some of it is binned by the creator, discarded, burned symbolically, and turned to ash, other times it is lost, falling through the cracks due to outside forces or internal pressures. However, not everything in time is lost to the world, not all that was considered ash is blown to the wind, there is always a remanent, a chance that the original spark could once again fulfil what was.
That sense of tragedy befell one of America’s finest early Progressive Rock bands from the classic era, a half century of pain for fans of St. Louis’ Pavlov’s Dog that an album that might have cemented the idealism and expertise on offer, was almost unceremoniously removed quietly from existence…with just a few copies of Has Anyone Here Seen Siegfried? seeing, breathing in the freedom that salvation and reprieve offers.
Considered lost, but now found, thanks to the efforts of serendipity, the original master tapes have paved a way for the listener to revel in the 1977 recording and the conditioning of the soul that the sound offers.
To be fair to the band, the members all bar David Surkamp either passed away of no longer around the heart of the group’s activities, the pulling of the album was perhaps a moment of natural pausing at the time, the studio and record label having lost faith in a genre that they perhaps saw as running out of steam and the lack of sales from the previous albums made the decision an easy one for them, and yet as the music plays with fierce broadminded advance, Has Anyone Here Seen Siegfried? should be considered as one of the greats captured in the studio.
Across tracks such as Goodbye Trafalgar, Painted Ladies, I Love You Still, the excellent Jenny, Suicide, and While You Were Out, what could have been for David Surkamp, Doug Rayburn, Steve Scorfina, Rick Stockton, Thomas Nickeson, and Kirk Sarkisian may be conjecture in a post eyed glaze, but it is worth remembering that at one time labels always gave time to the bands, understanding that it may take three or even four albums before the crowd understand what gem they had stumbled upon.
Has Anyone Here Seen Siegfried? is that gem, it is valuable for both its essence and its place in history, and that tension that drove the band apart is actually to be admired, perhaps in the same way that was in evidence when the likes of Genesis reached their original output and crescendo.
A remarkable exercise in memory and patience, Pavlov’s Dog’s lost third album is worth the wait with relish.
Ian D. Hall