BRAVE

Being such a Genesis fan, I decided to give several Marillion albums a listen after reading all the comparisons with the former band. I know those comparisons mostly extend to the Fish-era albums, but after leaving those albums disappointed, I figured I'd give H a chance. I decided to stick to his two highest rated albums which includes this album and Marbles. I gotta say, what a disappointment and believe me, I tried. I first listened to this album about a year ago when I was listening to Marillion for about a month. I gave them such a chance because 1) they are inspired by Genesis 2) they have a serious following who will pre-purchase their albums before they're made, travel around the world to spend a weekend with their group, and fund their tours and still pay for the tickets. Anyways, onto the actual album. Well, I decided to give this album one last chance today, as well as the band. The only thing prog about this album seems to be the concept. This is a story about a girl who has all these issues and gradually becomes more suicidal until she ends it (or not, depending on how you interpret it). Anyways, Marillion has always been one downer of a band. I mean, just look at all their album cover art. I mean it is all dark. I don't particularly like dark music, but hey, I enjoy my VDGG every now and then so why not Marillion. Well, this album is plain boring. Apparently the band thinks it is best to listen to this in a room with the lights off and headphones on? Sheesh, how can I stay awake? Hogarth is a competent singer, he certainly isn't bad but his vocals aren't very striking either. Sometimes I tune his vocals out without even trying and I still haven't quite followed the story either because it is a struggle to say focused on the album and the lyrics Hogarth sings. I'll listen to this and start doing something and then I'm on the 5th track and I wonder what happened to the three in between. The band switches between soft moments with minimalistic guitar noises and ambience to hard rocking tunes and then back to soft then hard. I forget about the soft moments and then the hard rocking moments help remind that the album is still on like the track "Hard as Love." The problem is that even these hard bits still bore and do nothing for me. Hogarth also sounds rather depressed throughout the album. Their is very little changes in anything and I can't tell when a song ends and the other begins. While Fish-era albums relied on complex time signatures, Hogarth-era albums have gone the "less is more" route. Most of these songs are simple pop songs and little changes, and none of the songs are truly catchy or memorable. This is just the same old, life can suck that this bands seems to like to stress. And that is the biggest problem I have with this album and the band, I have very little fun listening to them, and I sometimes wonder if it can be all that fun singing about such dark topics? for every single song.