MARILLION

Review Nº 881

It's impossible to talk about neo-prog and not talk about Marillion. They're a British prog rock band that was formed in Aylesbury, UK. They're one of the biggest names in progressive rock music and are perhaps the main responsible for the style's survival in the 80's when punk rock movement and the new wave dominated almost the entire music scene.

Marillion is divided into two phases. The first was with Fish, where the music is directed around his poetic and sometimes fanciful lyrics, which sounds a lot like Peter Gabriel. The band achieved their most successful in that phase, artistically, progressively and commercially. After four studio albums, Fish leaves the band and was replaced by Steve Hogarth, where the band introduced a new more oriented towards radio friendly style, although they still have an air of depression in their music. But regardless of which stage we are talking about, the band has significant works to offer.

"Brave" is the seventh studio album of Marillion and that was released in 1994. The line up on the album is Steve Hogarth (lead and backing vocals, keyboards and percussion), Steve Rothery (guitars), Mark Kelly (backing vocals and keyboards), Pete Trewavas (backing vocals and basses) and Ian Mosley (drums and percussion). The album had also the participation of Tony Halligan (Uillean pipes) and of The Liverpool Philharmonic (cellos and flutes), as guests.

With "Holidays In Eden", Marillion couldn't reach a wider audience and had turned away their faithful fans. So, they thought it was time to go back to their roots and make a more progressive album. "Brave" is a conceptual album based on a news story that Steve Hogarth heard on the radio about a girl who was taken to police prison after being found wandering the Severn Bridge. She didn't know who she was or where she came from and refused to speak. This inspired him to write a fictional story about this girl and what could have led to her being on Severn Bridge in this state. "Brave" explores the conceptual issue in an elegant and well executed way, providing a taste of the band's potential.

The keyboards are the show really on this album showing a "resurrected" Mark Kelly, whose role had diminished in importance since Fish's departure, Steve Rothery's guitar is present throughout and always fills the songs very well and Pete Trewavas and Ian Mosley form a solid rhythm support base. But, Steve Hogarth is also a big name on this album where his vocals are superb and temperamental. If in any time we have doubted about his abilities, we must listen to the album and at once see him live in the editions released on video in which the band plays "Brave" in full.

"Brave" cuts across all the facets of the Marillion's career, but with a greater emphasis on a mix of the two first studio albums of Hogarth's era, "Seasons End" and "Holidays In Eden", plus a immense dose of inspiration and in a more progressive approach. "Brave" is an album with eleven tracks, where some of them are broken down into several parts with separate names, "Goodbye To All That" and "The Great Escape". Besides them, we have some tracks that are like passages made to allow the listener to immerse themselves in the album's mood. In them, the shine is on account of the great Mark Kelly and his synthesizers. "Brave" starts with the atmospheric "Bridge", one of the most ambient songs on the album. It's followed by "Living With The Big Lie" one of the best pieces on the album with great music and good lyrics. This is a dense, bright and emotional track. "Run Way" is a very beautiful and melodramatic ballad. It has a great guitar solo. "Goodbye To All That" is a fantastic and very dense progressive song that revolves around intense a space atmospheres and with an extremely accessible melody, but without losing its essence. "Hard As Love" is the first hardest song on the album with an excellent solo synth, plus great guitars and powerful vocals. "The Hollow Man" is a semi-acoustic, a really nice change of pace and atmosphere after the previous rock song. "Alone Again Into The Lap Of Luxury" is beautiful, transforming from a great rock melody with a memorable chord progression to a dark ambient sound. "Paper Lies" is like "Hard As Love" a hard rock song that shows the rock side of the band. The title track is another atmospheric mood piece, mostly an ambient track. "The Great Escape" is a great track, one of the greatest works in the band's history, such the emotion it brings. With the ballad "Made Again" the album closes very sweetly.

Conclusion: "Brave" isn't a unanimous album in terms of fans and critics. But, for me, it's a very interesting work, one of the best in Hogarth's era. In reality, "Brave" is a unique album, not only in Marillion's back catalogue, but in the realm of rock music in general. Marillion may never have been the first choice of the usual prog rock heads, yet their fan base remains the most rabidly loyal and in "Brave" they demonstrated that you don't always have to be cool to release a jaw-dropping album. As "Brave" is such a very cohesive album, a conceptual album where all tracks are somehow linked together, it's difficult to pick out individual tracks as highlights. In reality, Marillion has great albums in both phases, but I'm still rooting for the band to produce something again in this format in Hogarth's phase, another concept work.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

Marillion have gone ahead and given This Strange Engine a very similar deluxe edition treatment to those previously received by the first 8 albums they put out through EMI. This Strange Engine, of course, represents the start of their independent era, and perhaps it's notable then that the two-CD live show bundled in this time comes from the legendary US tour which was the result of enthusiastic American fans chipping in to make it financially viable, kicking off the band's now-historic role in cultivating early forms of online crowdfunding.

There's also a "live bootleg" of an Utrecht gig on the accompanying Blu-Ray; this has soundboard-quality audio set to less-than-professional footage, and captures a gig where unfortunately Steve Hogarth's voice was shot, meaning that the band are hardly at the top of their form.

As for the album itself, it quite simply has never sounded better. Mind you, it's never sounded that much worse either - it's a mild tightening-up, not a game-changing remix like that enjoyed in 2018 by its follow-up, Radiation.

This album is just alright for me. This is Marillion's second attempt at a more commercial prog rock setting the guidelines for neo - prog. The reason for the low rating is the constant grating drums with way to much reverb. It's like they are trying to make up for having a bad drummer. If they weren't so large and important in the mix I wouldn't have a problem but they have this gross overproduced garbage sound that makes me feel sick. Each song has emotional and dark lyrics sung by their obviously Peter Gabriel Singer, Fish, but unlike Gabriel, Fish just mopes about the state of the world and begs for us to fix it for him. Maybe if you're lucky he'll sing a concept piece about his mean girlfriend or something. On occasion an interesting organ solo will try and rip you away from the vile drums but its never enough. I enjoy the lyrical content and the instrumentation but the way they went about producing it completely ruins it for me.

So after being extremely impressed with Marillion's first album with new singer Steve Hogarth, Seasons End, I was looking foreward to future releases, considering that at least some of the more negatively-recieved albums may have been in disappointment over the loss of Fish. I welcomed that loss, as he never diversified the band's content. With him out of the way, the greoup could expand their horizons. Or at least, that's what I was hoping for. This is an almost entirely different album from Seasons End. Not only is the prog rock almost entirely betrayed for radio rock, but they don't even bother to justify these OK songs with any real melodies in the instrumentation. They're too few to even put into a short-term memory of the album. There's a good deal of the arena stuff fore you, like "big music" and AOR, but none of it's fully developed, so it never manages to stand with bands like Magnum or U2. You'd think once the 80's passed, the bigname prog bands would STOP selling out, but apparently, even neo-prog bands like Marillion can fall victim to this...

There are many of us music reviewers who can't stand it when a band betrays their classic sound or when a major player in a band leaves, and then there are those of us who will accept the change if it's necessary. In this instance, it was the departure of England's most obvious Peter Gabriel wannabe, Fish. With the new AOR-oriented vocals of Steve Hogarth in play, it was time for Marillion to try something new. And is this a good thing? Well, for most neo- prog fans, Marillion is practically the go-to band for the rawest quality and for an introduction. But I treat all genres equally. I have favorites, but I never judge them unfairly towards other genres. And in this case, all Marillion is to me is a very catchy pop group that kept rewriting the same damn pop songs every album during the whole Fish era.

Seasons End might take slack for the chance in sound, but after four albums of the exact same thing which drew me away from neo-prog in the first place (after 12 years I haven't even gotten to 30 neo albums yet), I welcome it with arms more open than the range. Right from the glorious intro, The King of Sunset Town, I was taken in by the more progressive instrumental behavior and its raw beauty. Throughout the whole eight minutes, I was thinking to myself, "It's about time Marillion started acting like a prog band." This proves that Fish's whole vision for the band was, "What would Genesis sound like today is Gabriel didn't leave?" But of course, there's some room for hard- hitting AOR with songs like The Uninvited Guest and Holloway Girl. This gives us a stronger taste of what we had before, the poppier melodies but with a stylistic choice of bands such as Magnum. And as a man who believes On a Storyteller's Night almost rivals the Boston debut, I am not complaining about this. The album will also take time to soak in its atmospheres with the beautiful but potentially overlong titular track. And I even get a little jazziness in Berlin, and jazziness is something neo-prog needs. Do the smooth jazz aspects right, and it's perfect for the subgenre.

This is the Marillion album I wanted: a multi-faceted one. With a more serious and less obvious style, Marillion have finally distanced themselves from the Genesis sound and took some time to expand. I suppose the legal issues that caused Fish's departure were just what the band needed to finally expand their horizons. Seasons End is the more intriguing album of the classic era, and it gives me hope for the albums after this one, even going as far as to potentially ignore the negative reviews.

Review Nº 871

"4 Albums" is a very special compilation from Marillion. It was released in 2011. It's an economic package that includes four studio works of the band, "Misplaced Childhood" of 1985, "Clutching At Straws" of 1987, "Seasons End" of 1989 and "Holidays In Eden" of 1991, on only one package. This is an interesting compilation. It can be a worth purchase if you don't have the four original albums yet. It means that, if you buy "4 Albums", you can save on money and space. However, for those who have already the four albums, "4 Albums" only can be a nice addition for your collection.

As I've already reviewed these four albums previously and individually on Progarchives, in a more extensive way, I'm not going to do it again. So, if you are interested to know, in more detail, what I wrote about them before, I invite you to read those my reviews. However, in here I'm going to write something about them in a more short way. So, of course, I'm not going to analyze them as extensively as I made before, but I'm only going to make a global appreciation of them.

"Misplaced Childhood": Besides be their most commercially successful album, "Misplaced Childhood" is their best studio album and is also one of the best studio albums made by any prog band. Even the former drummer of Dream Theater, Mike Portnoy commented this was the best Marillion's album. With "Misplaced Childhood", Marillion proved they weren't a clone of Genesis and reached the status of be considered one of the best prog rock bands. "Misplaced Childhood", put Marillion at the same quality level of Genesis, Yes, Pink Floyd, Gentle Giant, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Van Der Graaf Generator, Camel, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Rush and Dream Theater. It put them as one of the greatest and most influential prog bands. If you don't know the band yet and want to buy a Marillion's albums, this is the best.

"Clutching At Straws": "Clutching At Straws" is an excellent album, probably a more mature work than the other three previous studio albums. The lyrics and compositions are more emotional and dramatic as ever and the band found their musical identity and balance. It's the last break with Genesis' influence. I think there is some truth in these. I think that "Clutching At Straws" is, in a certain way, more a Fish's album than a Marillion's album. Lyrically, the character was inspired by Fish's life experiences, and it has everything to do with his personal life in those times, with his problems with the alcoholism and drugs. Musically, it's also closer to the music that Fish would make on his solo works. Despite "Clutching At Straws" be a great studio album, it isn't as good as "Script For A Jester's Tear" or "Misplaced Childhood" are, it remains an excellent work representing the last contribution of a great artist who left the band by the front door.

"Seasons End": This first album of Marillion without Fish worked well. When we are listening to "Seasons End", we can conclude that the group recorded a beautiful album, rich in melodies, with a meticulous guitar work and impeccable instrumentation. Here, Marillion managed to survive of the replacing a revered front man mainly yielding good results. And although as a whole it doesn't quite manage to reach the same musical peaks as reached by some of the material from the Fish era it will, to people who give it a thorough listen, prove a strong and worthy follow on. Despite I always had some problems with Hogarth's era in Marillion, "Seasons End" remains one of my favorite Marillion's albums, even if I still sort of sorted it in my head under an imaginary other band's name. This is a band looking for a new beginning.

"Holidays In Eden": "Holidays In Eden" is one of the most commercial and poppy offspring in Marillion's career. At times it's hard to believe that the rhythm section is the same that we admired and praised in "Fugazi" and "Misplaced Childhood". Kelly has been held in check, we miss his virtuoso's solos and poignant piano laps. The cuts made to Rothery's solos are too evident in some cases, with the duration reduced to a minimum. The voice of Hogarth could only emerge, very suitable for charts, and the lyrics has been taken a step back compared to "Seasons End", they're much more oriented towards romanticism, neglecting demanding themes. I think the band realized this direction was leading them nowhere. Fortunately, they got right back to where they belonged with their next studio album "Brave".

Conclusion: After what I wrote before and despite I have mentioned that "4 Albums" is only important for those who don't own the four original studio works or for the hardest collector fans of Marillion, in reality, this compilation album is very interesting. It comprises the two last studio albums of Fish's era and the two first studio albums of Hogarth's era. However, it isn't a very uniform compilation album in terms of quality. If the two albums that belong to Fish's era, "Misplaced Childhood" and "Clutching At Straws" are both two excellent works, mainly the first one, we cannot say the same about the two works from Hogarth's era. It's true that "Season's End" is also an excellent album but "Holidays In Eden" is clearly weaker. Anyway and as a whole, we can say that "4 Albums" is a very good compilation album. In a way, it can do a nice picture of both worlds in Marillion's career. If you haven't those works, it can be a nice purchase.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

Review Nº 868

As most of us know, Marillion is a progressive rock band that was formed in 1979. They are the most popular exponent of what is known as neo-prog. Marillion's early works belong to Fish's era and featured Fish's poetic and introspective lyrics, shaped with very complex and subtle musical arrangements. The leave of Fish and the entrance of Steve Hogarth to Marillion left a big mark on the band and projected Marillion to a noticeable change in the direction and musical style.

"Holidays In Eden" is a starkly commercial album for Marillion. The band stripped the songs to the basic melodies, and tried to reduce indulgences to the bare minimum. As a result, "Holidays In Eden" today is an album that often gets maligned by the old fans of Marillion. Steve Rothery's guitar is not as omnipresent as it normally was and this time Mark Kelly's keyboards provide little more than pleasant accompaniment. However, the album has some nice progressive moments in bits and pieces. But, almost all the album is loaded down with pretty standard rock songs, vastly different from the old Marillion and not as satisfying as many expected of them. Still, "Holidays In Eden" remains a good work.

"Holidays In Eden" is the sixth studio album of Marillion and that was released in 1991. "Holidays In Eden" is their first album completely written without the presence of Fish. The line up on the album is Steve Hogarth (lead and backing vocals), Steve Rothery (guitars), Mark Kelly (keyboards), Pete Trewavas (backing vocals and basses) and Ian Mosley (drums and percussion). The album had also the participation of Christopher Neil (backing vocals) as a guest artist.

"Holidays In Eden" has ten tracks. The first track "Splintering Heart" is an album's strong opener. It gets off to a slow start and Hogarth sings his lyrics, at first subdued but slowly getting louder. The tension is built perfectly. Then the song breaks open and it's Rothery's fierce guitar playing that cuts through the song wonderfully. The second track "Cover My Eyes (Pain And Heaven)" is one of the most poppy songs on the album. It's a darker number that has a strong chorus with a nice guitar effect and has a content to sing aloud. This is probably a song that will get stuck in your head. This is nice but it isn't one of my favourites. The third track "The Party" is a lot more progressive and has a wonderful structure. This song starts quietly with the voice and the piano and ends also quietly and has a lot of musical spectacle in between, in which the solid guitar playing of Rothery stands out, but the wonderful heavy bass playing of Trewavas is also well reflected. The fourth track "No One Can", launched as a single, is one of my least favourites. Without blemish from an instrumental and vocal point of view, it doesn't provoke a special interest in me, perhaps because it has a little varied stride and melody and is shamelessly oriented to be a commercial hit. The fifth track is the title track "Holidays In Eden". It highlights all the instruments equally, with rhythm changes that go from energetic passages to more intimate ones. This is another poppy tune. This is one of the weakest songs on the album. It's nice but too straightforward to really captivate me. The sixth track "Dry Land" is another highlight, a fantastic showcase of the talent of these musicians, demonstrating that without Fish they were capable of growing up without him. This is a compelling song, where especially Rothery's guitar solos are wonderful. The seventh track "Waiting To Happen" begins with an acoustic guitar, Hogarth's voice and a few light keyboards that immediately exploit a simple melody but with Rothery's guitar it acquires enormous strength, to return ready to an intimate development. It's again in the commercial vein, but pleasant enough. The eighth track "This Town" is another one of my favourites. This is a hard rock song with a very fast riff. The final part in it is a Rothery inspired with his excellent guitar full of feeling. It's a kind of a driving rock song to the final two ballads. In reality, the final three songs on the album work as a suite. The ninth track "The Rakes Progress" is a very short song, which is only an instrumental interlude that unites the previous song "This Town" with the last song "100 Nights". The tenth track "100 Nights" is another of my favourites too. It's a more full and epic ballad, exciting and instrumentally hallucinating, another of these themes with a true intimate beginning in which highlights Rothery's guitar, a musician who didn't value enough at the time of making the typical lists of great guitar magicians.

Conclusion: "Holidays In Eden" is one of the most commercial and poppy offspring in the impressive Marillion's career. Chris Nei's hand and EMI pressure prevailed over the band's musical tastes and intentions. At times it's hard to believe that the rhythm section is the same that we admired and praised in "Fugazi" and "Misplaced Childhood". Kelly has been held in check, we miss his virtuoso's solos and poignant piano laps. The cuts made to Rothery's solos are too evident in some cases, with the duration reduced to a minimum. The voice of Hogarth could only emerge, very suitable for charts, and the lyrics has been taken a step back compared to "Seasons End", they're much more oriented towards romanticism, neglecting the demanding themes. I think the band realized this direction was leading them nowhere. Fortunately, they got right back to where they belonged with their next studio album "Brave" that was released in 1994.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

Review Nº 863

As we know, Marillion is a progressive rock band that was formed in 1979 in UK. They're one of the biggest names in the prog rock world. This English band was perhaps the main responsible for the style's survival in the 80's. With Fish as a member of the band, Marillion released four studio albums, "Script For A Jester's Tear" in 1983, "Fugazi" in 1984, "Misplaced Childhood" in 1985 and "Clutching At Straws" in 1987. The loss of Fish was terrible for the band and for the fans. Fish proved to be one of the best lyricists of the new generation and had a remarkable charisma on stage.

"Seasons End" is the band's first album after Fish left Marillion. The band had got Steve Hogarth as the new singer, although the band had already recorded most of the material when Hogarth joined. Only a couple of songs on it actually have some pieces written by him, "Easter" and "The Space...". A number of the lyrics were written by John Helmer, who the band had commissioned before Hogarth joined. Marillion stuck musically to the sound of the previous albums. It was curious to see how the new singer could fill the gap from Fish. Hogarth sounded different than Fish, but it was an instant hit with fans. The album was also well received by critics but couldn't keep the status of the previous albums.

So, "Seasons End" is the fifth studio album of Marillion and that was released in 1989. As I mentioned above, "Seasons End" is the first album of Marillion to feature the current lead singer Steve Hogarth. So, the line up on the album is Steve Hogarth (vocals), Steve Rothery (guitars), Mark Kelly (keyboards), Pete Trewavas (bass) and Ian Mosley (drums and percussion). It had also the participation of Jean-Pierre Rasle (bagpipes) and Phil Todd (saxophone), as guests.

"Seasons End" has nine tracks. The first track "The King Of Sunset Town" starts with the ethereal keyboards, the pulsating bass coming slowly, minimalist drums and Rothery's characteristic guitar, that slowly take on the theme. The voice of the new vocalist shows the band has maintained its identity despite a different vocal approach. The second track "Easter" is a ballad, one of the most beautiful ballads made by the band. Lyrically is excellent and musically is perfect. The totally passionate guitar solo contributes significantly to the construction of the theme. Hogarth easily fits his vocals into the song's arrangements, demonstrating intimacy with the theme. The third track "The Uninvited Guest" has a fastest tempo song and has some pop influences. It has some interesting lyrics with some quiet little Scottish references, probably to Fish. That isn't strange because it's the first song on the album fully composed after Fish's departure. Despite it has a more pop vein, I like it. The fourth track is the title track "Seasons End". It's both, lyrically and musically great, slow, dense and very melodic. Hogarth shows that, like Fish but in a different way, he could create progressive themes with passionate interpretations as Fish did. Here we have another lyrically well constructed guitar solo that fits the emotional aspects of the theme. The fifth track "Holloway Girl" is a theme that starts slowly and gradually grows and develops. Highlight again for Hogarth, and of course, Rothery's guitars that when not in evidence, appear in the background all the time involving the song. In this album we have some of the best Rothery's conceptions and interpretations. The sixth track "Berlin" is a slow and melodic track, with strummed guitars and the sullen voice of Hogarth. For the first time we have the saxophone sound in a work by Marillion. It appears here not only in the solos, but throughout the song. Hogarth manages to perfectly match his vocals exploring new musical horizons to the band. The seventh track "After Me" is another guitar-driven ballad, a song that could been a single. It's a great theme with a good keyboard work. Its music goes back to Fish's days, but the vocal melody is 100% Hogarth. The eighth track "Hooks In You" is a very short track, the shortest of all. It's perhaps the most poppy song on the album. It's very similar to "Incommunicado" one in that it's based on a line of keyboards and has a firm guitar base. It was also composed by the band after Fish left Marillion. The ninth track "The Space..." closes the album with a longer progressive epic track. This is a great song with some interesting cryptic lyrics. In a way, this is a perfect theme to finish this excellent album.

Conclusion: This first album of Marillion without the presence of Fish worked well. It was well received by critics and fans. When we are listening to "Seasons End", one can clearly conclude that the group recorded a beautiful album, rich in melodies, with a meticulous guitar work and impeccable instrumentals. With this album, Marillion managed thankfully to survive the shaky manoeuvre of replacing a revered front man mainly yielding good results. And although as a whole it doesn't quite manage to reach the same musical peaks as reached by some of the material from the Fish era it will, to people who give it a thorough listen, prove a strong and worthy follow on. Despite I always had some problems with Hogarth's era in Marillion, "Seasons End" remains one of my favorite Marillion's albums, even if I still sort of sorted it in my head under an imaginary other band's name. It's a successful album by a band that was looking for a new style.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

by Marillion. It's such an emotional album, and you can feel every bit of it. The songs are long but never boring; they tell these deep, personal stories that really pull you in. Fish's voice is amazing?so full of power and emotion?and the lyrics are like poetry, even when they're sad. The band plays beautifully together, especially the guitar and keyboard parts, which just add so much feeling. I think my favorite songs are "He Knows You Know" and "Chelsea Monday." They just stuck with me. The whole album feels honest and real, like it came straight from the heart. I'll definitely keep coming back to it.

Unfortunately, Marillion didn't come up with something interesting this time. The first side of the vinyl kicks off the album quite promisingly, yet on the second side there is almost nothing of interest. The Last Century For Man and Faith must be among the most lukewarm songs the band has ever written. A come-back takes place on side three with A Voice From The Past at the vanguard. The Wound starts wonderfully, but its development falls short in my view and No Such Thing is simply good. The album in general is slow paced, subdued should I say which is certainly not a bad thing, it's just that the songs aren't really captivating. The guitar work isn't anything Steve Rothery will be remembered for and the rest of the band memberes shouldn't be let off the hook either. The lyrics, as always, are worth to pay attention to. The live versions of The Other Half, Somewhere Else and A Voice From The Past can't save things.

I will go for fans only since the friends of Marillion will surely have to check it out, but if somebody ever asked me to play them something from Marillion, I would never pick anything from this album.