MARILLION.COM

Marillion's last studio album before the turn of the century was 'marillion.com', their eleventh, with a title alluding to their crowdfunding achievements, that would soon allow them to become completely independent, except for distributing their music. The album continues the sequence of them working on and expanding a sound that could be considered 'typical Marillion,' a recognizable blend of soft rock and pop with a playful tint of melodic neo-prog, although their music by that time was going as further away as possible from their Genesis-inspired early days. 'marillion.com' was partially produced by Steven Wilson, which is an interesting detail making this record a little more special that the couple ones preceding it.

While this album was not a commercial success, it is not a creative one either, making up for one of the career lows creatively, as the period in the second half of the 90s was generally turbulent for the band, something that perhaps left its trace upon their output. The album runs for a little more than an hour and is packed with a load of songs that are broadly speaking, uninspiring and forgettable. Occasional attempts at a more classic rock sound interchange with ballads and slower songs, mostly to mediocre results. A couple of highlights would include the fantastic song 'Go!', which is often played live by the band even to that day, the longest piece on the album in the face of 'Interior Lulu', a fine suite that was apparently pieced together from different song ideas, and to an extent the 10-minute album closer 'House', a more sorrowful piece that sits well at the end of the record and even if it is overlong it still overshadows most of the other songs on here. The rest of 'marillion.com' is bland and non-remarkable, it lacks interesting production, and just does not make up for a fine album experience.