SCRIPT FOR A JESTER'S TEAR (2020 LIMITED DELUXE EDITION)

The 2020 deluxe version of Script For a Jester's Tear offers up a treasury of wonders. The freshly remastered album, given a careful remix by Andy Bradfield and Avril Mackintosh, feels like a distinct improvement over the previous 1997 remaster of the album; now that the CD mastering "loudness wars" have passed the material is given a bit more room to breathe and it all just sounds fantastic, with new subtleties teased out. They even tease the best out of Mick Pointer's drumming.

The second CD gives the same treatment to the Market Square Heroes EP - with Charting the Single also spruced up as a bonus track. Significantly, the version of Grendel here is not the "Fair Deal Studios version" from the 2CD version of the 1997 reissue, but the studio version which was originally released with the EP - the first time this track has had a proper clean-up on CD since it was issued as part of B'side Themselves. Andy and Avril have worked wonders with this version of the track, dialling back some of the inappropriate sunniness of the earlier mix and investing it with the dark spirit of the Fair Deal Studios version, whilst at the same time bringing out details of the performances that the Fair Deal version obscures. It may be in the running for my favourite rendition of the song now.

Last off, there's a live show from the Marquee from 29th December 1982. If you have the Early Stages boxed set, you'll have the 30th December performance, and the running order between the two is identical, but a) if you have that box and you enjoy it you're probably the sort of person who can't get enough live Fish anyway and b) if you don't have that box, this is a pretty good show from the Script-era lineup.

Small note from the album, the bonuses are for addicted fans, in short for fun! In fact the fans have already piled everything up in their homes over time... if they are fans! So here is the OMNI post of M with this MARILLION, not SIMARILLION, not HARILLION we are on the true, the unique, the authentic.

1' Script For A Jester's Tear' 'So here I am once more in the playground of the broken hearts'.... and the crystalline piano, bam the decor is set; yes I'm not going to dissect the album, I'm just going to try to take you back to the past; this moment when you listened to it for the 1st time, Christian name of Zeus; yes, that moment when you said to yourself it's not possible, it happened, I no longer believed it; the moment when you arrived proudly at your buddy's, yes we all have a prog buddy and you hid the K7 and started reading; anyway... he had the same K7 that he wanted you to listen to before you did! What did you like, the pads yes, the guitar yes, the bass yes, the synth yes, the voice YES; the station wagon... progressive, perfection, neo was there; and I see your smile of bliss, don't say no, boom boom said Pete with his bass, he whose hand I kept without washing for several days after having greeted him; ah Steve actually a great guitarist with a dreamlike spleen that goes hand in hand with the voice of Fish, in jester's tear of course, buffoon goes! 2 'He Knows You Know' connects ah this synth, ah this battery, ah sacred problems; short title with two singers, nah I'm kidding but hey we believed it for a while; these voiceovers behind as on 'Ashes' of the great Bowie, magnificent; good synth and guitar solo that suits me I don't ask for more, but I want it infused so that it flows in my veins forever; and who says that the prog is an old thing, I was 20 years old listening. Ah this Wallien final, which I still like 3 'The Web' pan orchestral debauchery and it continues, it connects on perhaps the best title of the album; a musical theater piece with bells, Genesis tune: mandatory digressive pause yes GENESIS is their parent, it's certified, but as a hidden parent we agree; it's at this moment that I remember why the hard fanzines supported them, it was really and pleasantly strong all the same; well we come back to the title like just when tumbles this dithyrambic solo which does not end, attention guaranteed potential enjoyment. Come on Mick unrolls the panoply of his percussive kit and we start again on this bluffing melody and a second more intimate break; the end is almost too agreed with the age, I age? good The web anyway! 4 'Garden Party' for this characteristic hit on the pads, for this heady air on the keyboards, for this vocal work, yes the moment when the voice is indeed part of the musical space, that's stamped neoprog; good look at the clip it is cabbage with the time which passed since; here I start to write as fast as Mark touches his keyboards, I start to be delirious there... in short I am in apnea since 'Script' we are all there. 5 'Chelsea Monday' the second favorite song, yes I can say it's me who hammers the drums.... who hits the keyboard; monolithic sound, plaintive guitar notes, not depressive, a bit melancholy, it will make me want to look for ANATHEMA for these lamenting sounds; 'Chelsea Monday' and the telluric musical explosion, Steve who releases one of his most beautiful solos from the 1st album, pooh I'm sweaty! Well, let's calm down, the acoustics go perfectly with the mood of the moment; when I experienced the art of warrior love with the girlfriend of the moment... or always? Turn to mad love, darken to orgasm, yes the prodigal was very crazy at that time, perhaps much more than the poor young people of today drowned in futile zik-kleenex; shh we're talking in the speakers, I'm rambling, oh no it's in the title; good to Monday! 6 'Forgotten Sons' it's clever I just lost my radio frequency; ah a bit of Marquet Square heroes I'm getting closer; good the finale, the most rhythmic title, the most frenzied, the freshest at least at the start, yes because it starts to talk quickly and it breaks the rhythm precisely; ah, I'll almost forget this enjoyable twirling, progressive synth break I would say, yes I think it's actually prog; ooh there it becomes martial all of a sudden what did I do wrong? why so many voices attacking me, why this endless battery? why these cries? Why? Good solo less good or better, it depends on the time I listen to it but what is good, dreamlike moment to keep for oneself; well what will happen now, we don't know, hold on tight, here we go.

Well, anyone who was waiting for a dissected chro of this mythical album won't find it there; but since it came out in full listening, maybe he will find there some organoleptic musical traces of what flowed into my memory at that time.... who knows, we don't know, let's go there going again?