WELTSCHMERZ

I've never been the most faithful fan of Fish, loving much of what he did on the early Marillion albums "Script", "Childhood", and especially "Clutching" ("Fugazi"...not so much...); and his work on some of the Tony Banks solo shtuff was great. Then I took a chance a couple of years ago on his compilation cd "Bouillabaisse" and was really impressed. So I thought I'd give his new one "Weltschmerz" (World Pain) a listen.

I really like it. His vocals are great on this, sounding like an older Phil Collins(?), which is weird as I always thought his younger voice was more similar to Peter Gabriel. And the songwriting is fresh and original, albeit in the Marillion/Genesis vein in many places. The most proggy song is the nearly 14 minute "Waverley Steps (End of the Line)". A couple of songs were on the edge of skippable for me first time through - "Man With a Stick" and "This Party's Over". I thought that they could have been left off of this 84-minute album and it would have been just fine. But subsequent listens have softened me to even those two songs. Leave 'em alone...

This is good stuff overall. And not nearly as downtrodden as a title like Weltschmerz might indicate. 4 stars seems about right.

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