The Marillion Round Table

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 Basíleia wrote:

 stonebeard wrote:

 E-Dub wrote:

 stonebeard wrote:

Happiness has a nice airy quality to the songs and the flow of the album, but it's a sin that the band sounds so sleepy on it. The mixing was just not the best.

I think that's what I liked about Somewhere Else was the album began with the rockers. 

As for Happiness, I think it would've worked better as a single disc. I still can't get into "Threw Me Out", "Older Than Me" and "Especially True". IMO, these songs are worse than anything off Somewhere Else. 

Maybe the next should be a happy medium between the two?

E

Well I adore HitR, much more so than Somewhere Else. It might have worked better as one disc, but it's still pretty solid. I'm not talking about the structure of the songs so much or how they are arranged, it's just the production is too monotonous throughout the record, which serves atmospheric songs like "Liquidity" and "The Man from the Planet Marzipan" just fine, but songs like "Woke Up" and "Thunder Fly" lack the immediacy their nature demands.

It's probably Marillion's greatest flaw. The band has such a penchant for the atmospheric that it often doesn't give the songs the life they need until they're preformed live.

Yes, I think you're right there, it probably is Marillions greatest flaw, though I have to admit I find nothing wrong with songs like "Woke Up" or "Thunder Fly": I can see why the former misses some energy in some's opinion, but I think it is a bit in the nature of that song to be 'easy'. I also happen to quite like the easygoing songs from the second half of the second CD Especially "Older than Me" and "Escpecially True". I do, however, agree with you guys that the overall album sometimes just is a bit too atmospheric... Like Eric's said, Marillion is never stagnant, therefore I am very excited about hearing the new album. 

I tnink the atmospherics are actually their strong point ! Too many groups just don't use them well or even at all, but Marillion are not afraid to ( No record company to oblige  I guess). I see your point about the second half of HITR, but I don't really think it detracts from the experience. It will be interesting to see how they react to this previous album on the new upcoming one !   Maybe Pete doing the tour with Transatlantic
 will up the Prog element a bit from a writing standpoint. How about a 30 minute epic from Marillion ?