ONCE AROUND THE WORLD

I agree with the other reviewers that Francis Dunnery is a great guitarist and there is some interesting use of the guitar but on the whole I find this album disappointing. Yes it does have odd signatures and lots of different moods but only in the longer tracks the rest is just very dated sounding 80's pop rock. It Bites were really Marillions only serious opposition (other contempories IQ not really bruising the singles chart) in the genre and while Marillion did pop singles they had a timeless quality that none of these songs posess as the production reeks of the late eighties. The more overtly proggy tracks are good and worth a listen but still give a feeling of "prog for beginners".