Hi,

Kinda strange to see something listed as "but without breaking new ground" ... which I find rather weird.

Let's see ... take an actor and he/she does Shakespeare and then does a card board show for many years. You call that "breaking new ground"? NO. That's acting, and it doesn't matter the tapestry it is it. So a painter, stops using blue and comes up with a "rose" period ... is that "breaking new ground"? NO. A musician plays another song, and this time he adds one chord he had not used before, probably by accident on a different tuning on the guitar ... is that "breaking new ground"? NO.

You might suggest that all of the music and "style" for the band has to change completely, and that is not likely possible, since it is the same folks and combination of minds and talent! That usually does not change a whole lot, and the majority of bands that last this long don't change much ... and we call the new album by the Rolling Stones ... "breaking new ground"? NO.

Marillion has settled into stories and tales with its lyrics, which kinda came from their old days, when FISH came up with a very theatrical style, that many folks thought PG had started, and he HAD NOT. "Breaking new ground"? NO.

From what I have heard in this album it is very well focused on its point, as was the previous one about F.E.A.R and in many ways that is rather nice, instead of having various songs, some of which are about nothing that matters to you or me. "Breaking New Ground" NO.

Makes me question, how much do you really like and care for "progressive music" and the very folks that represent it so well these days, and do not have to resort to bombastic crap to get their point across and still produce wonderful material, and Marillion has earned that reputation over 40 years of a lot of excellent music ... I suppose that if you like the 5th over the 4th is ok, but saying that the 9th, the latest is not as good as the 4th or the 5th? Very weird. Which suggests one more point ... how much have you listened to it to get the feel, other than a quickie?

In that sense, no wonder you are not breaking new ground ... as if you were looking for something for the band to do, and YOU are not a part of the band!

From what I have been reading the past couple days seems it will fall under #2, with a bit of #3. The heaviness of the lyrics is putting people off it seems, the past 2 years has been heavy enough. I don't want to relive it every time I spin a record recorded in 2021......

We'll see once I spend a week or two listening.

Cure and Murder Machines are both bona fide Marillion classics. The rest will take time to fully appreciate, which is always the case with them.

Hi,

SHUDDER ... COUGH .... SPIT .... GAG ... 

I don't think that SW has the depth of lyrical words, to create something like Marillion has done. In that sense, PT won't even make it to number 100 for me. Specially when the sample we heard had the worst drumming we ever put our ears to! Why not use a metronome, or a VST, instead? It would have been better.

I am not sure that PT will stand up as well anymore. I think they have lost a lot, and they gave up on their last album (the double) that a lot of people thought was an overkill ... which I'm 50/50 on, but it would have made a much better and stronger single album if it was not a double! In other words, SW did not know when not to say something and allow the band to talk with their instruments ... and this part is the one that will hurt them in the new effort. I would love to see them "float" a bit more again, like they did for so long ... but the main issue, and it goes back to the early SW stuff is that he was a pop person, and I think that too much of PT in its new form will be very pop oriented, and to me, that will kill the band. And, honestly, if that happens, deservedly so!

As far as the lyrical work, Marillion, these days, stands alone ... they are not "out of time" and are concurrent with the events, and on par with helping us understand the whole thing, and honestly, just like the old days in Madison and Chicago marching for some things, this is fine with me ... it is meaningful and not just a bunch of NOTHING WORDS that can not stand up after the 6 PM news! 

I trust the words from Marillion. I trust the words from Peter Hammill (for another example), just like I trusted the words from Daevid and Gilly ... they were REAL PEOPLE and they stood out for me in their completeness and wholeness and humanity ... I don't have any kind of similar feeling for SW, and I am not into idol worship or care! In fact, I find a lot of his work, sometimes, winded and opinionated, specially about something meaningless. It probably was way better in HAND.CANNOT.ERASE but while there were a couple of things that were special and nice, in the end, the rest was not as strong. Ninet's piece in that album is the very best that SW can do, but I am not sure he has anything like it any more ... that piece was more about Ninet than it was about SW ... and it had a sincere feeling, that SW does not always show, as if he has to hide behind his ideas and thoughts.

My take on it so far: It is yet another masterpiece in the catalogue of the band, making it the third one in a row. Fabulous music, intelligent lyrics and songwriting, absolutely memorable and intense all throughout, simply gracious!

I will let it take its time, however, and see how I feel about it after a couple more spins and god knows how many days more until I decide definitively how I see it.

But in a word, it is a mandatory listen at least.

Yes, this. I gave it a play this afternoon and pumped up the volume, in spite of working. It gets better with each listen, rather like a fine wine.

That makes me happy!! My copy should hit the house Thursday, will play it all weekend to let it soak in.

Aways interested in your thoughts, Steve. That is a very honest review, so respect as always.

FEAR was released in 2016, not 2012. It anticipated very well the arguments in the UK regarding Brexit, and was very farsighted regarding the dirty money flowing through my country.

As for An Hour Before It’s Dark, the band have revisited some familiar themes, especially climate change. However, it is not all doom and gloom. The Crow and the Nightingale is a tribute to Leonard Cohen and Sierra Leone is a track about the place. The latter I have not quite appreciated fully yet, but the former is a wonderful track. Murder Machines and The Cure are, as I have said before, classics from the band. I am still listening to the opening track to fully appreciate it, but Reprogram The Gene I love.

There is a fine balance between lecturing and haranguing an audience, and, by and large, I feel that Marillion get it right. The musicianship is exceptional, and it is pitched at the right level for these times. As I have said before, a few more listens required before I review, but, for me, a very strong four star album at this stage. We are lucky we are still able to debate such a fine band after all this time.

It's quite interesting that "The Crow And The Nightingale" is about the late Leonard Cohen, a brilliant songwriter in his own right. The artwork in the liner notes depicting a silhouetted man wearing a fedora should have tipped me off. Now I have to immediately give the song, and the entire album, another listen after just deciding to put it on the shelf! It's wonderful how music has so many different dimensions that can draw one back to it. So, cheers old friend, and thanks for sharing you insights and opinions! 

I posted my review yesterday if anyone wants to take a look on the album page 

Thank you! Your review was great as well. I found the "misery doesn't love company" approach to be an interesting one; I suppose my point when writing my review was that I still perceived the record as having silver linings for the listener to grab onto, even during the most depressing sections. For instance, the lyrics at the end of Care, which praise the hospital workers as "angels". I will say, I really wish I touched on some of the shorter tracks as well; Murder Machines was an excellent single, and I like how it ties in with Care thematically. 

Nice review. I will probably post mine over the next couple of days.

This world's gone mad We find ourselves in lockdown Trying to get the lowdown From the PM's 5pm address

I don't want to be reminded of the covid pandemic every time I listen to this album, but it's difficult not to. On Murder Machines it's also very much on the nose. I don't see these songs being something I'd want to listen to in the future. What if you lost someone close and hear "I put my arms around her and I killed her with love". That is literally true for many people out there.

I have to admit that I'm not one that usually pays a lot of attention to lyrics and like when they don't necessarily tell a story very directly in a way that makes it impossible not to register.

I also like the mentioned reviews by Necrotica and SteveG.

Hi,

No more "The Wall" for you!

No more KC (1st album) for you! (specially Epitath and then the first piece for a Russian these days!)

I'm not sure that lyrics alone are the most important part of it all ... the combination of lyrics and the music is what matters, and if its accents are well defined and used properly, and I think that Marillion has gotten to a level of honesty and integrity that is difficult for many musicians to bring a lot of things forward and not be thought of as just plain vanilla and no color. Similarly, FISH has also created a lot of very powerful pieces of work, via his words and lyrics and how he shows them on stage ... quite strong.

Words, when used well, take things into a new meaning ... but then, there is something that confuses us, and my example is in theater with Keith Michell doing King Lear over 400 times, and during his quiet piece and repetition of one word, the director Peter Brook said that as many shows as they did, he never heard Keith Michell do it the same way every night ... it was always different, and my guess is "tuned" to that night's audience.

Telling a story is a funny, weird, bizarre and crazy thing, and is not the same each and every time. One writer does it with the 52 pick up method for words, and somehow it works, and many a rocker has taken that literally (Can, Eno and David Bowie) ... but in the end, it is the context that makes it valuable.

Similarly, there were/are many songs that were very valuable during the Vietnam days ... and I remember them, not sure yo do ... Country Joe is one of them, but there are many others that stand up just as much even though the film did not show us some of it, since they had enough to not be "political", and instead be more about the fun, the drugs and the music that became the multi billion selling materials of the time with only the Beatles and Rolling Stones not there!

Lyrics, that make sense, and stand up, are USUALLY about the time and place ... IT IS NOT JUST A SONG. And I think this is what a lot of us here think of ... songs for my mp3, or for my cell phone, and I don't want this or that, and a setting like that can be selective, but is not indicative of anything except your moods and what you like to carry you on, on an otherwise boring day at work ... for example. But if you had lived in the late 60's and early 70's like I did, I think that your tastes in lyrics would be significantly different, and they would still pick you up, regardless of "meaning" and "ideas" ... you make it sound like that Neil Young screaming about those dead students is meaningless to my life ... I was there! Not just a bystander while sucking on a lollipop and toking a joint thinking about how hip I am!

I won't be buying the Marillion album so at least no review from me guys.

Hi,

The answer is YES. Marillion are not just another pop/rock band, and the material they do is meaningful and important because of it. It is also thoughtful in many ways, something that I like to joke that most prog fans confuse with clever worded lyrics that have little to say, when compared to something that is REAL and not just a bunch of WORDS. 

I listened to it off the tube (album getting here today), and I had to listen to everything 4 times before I stopped, and the quality and feeling is mutual ... you know you have a true "friend", and not just someone to share a beer with!

This is the "personal" side of the music that Marillion has, that SW/PT do not have, and the main reason why I feel that Marillion is a much more valuable band, but that is not to say that SW/PT do not have some great moments, they do! But, in the lyrical sense, you know that Marillion is not fake, and their music is true ... to the point they can unplug it and play within classical styles and acoustic. Not to mention that we don't have to listen to a mechanical/mathematical drumming style that is, by now, extremely boring!

I agree, the colors pop nicely.....Kinda wish the music was a bit brighter like the cover and the sun orange color variant of the LP.

As one YouTube reviewer commented....This album is not one you play at a BBQ with family and friends, but rather one you play on a rainy day.

Hi,

I think that is a bit pessimistic for my tastes. When someone is away, and apart from the "real" issues, it is easy to make a comment, whose sentiments are kinda cynical in many ways.

In my many years (71 now) I do not deny, or think that a rainy day is better than the sunny day or vice versa (it's all the same in Portland/Seattle!!!) ... it is simply another day and that has nothing to do with my moods, or the music I am listening to ... which would suggest some kind of social conditioning in my book. I don't subscribe to those attitudes and really think that many people are more unable to be sympathetic to issues that are not fun, and decidedly bad. 

I guess those folks will think that the pop related SW/PT will make a better album!

It's even worse when we come down to "quoting" someone, a nobody for all intents and purposes, with a comment that is clever, but really more on the down side of things than the upside. We don't get, "our part" in these things, and how long we avoided it, and then something like this gets worse, and we say it's a bad day in paradise, and we are in the middle of it. 

It's easy to tell when folks have never had bullets and shells flying over their heads day and night to know the difference and realize that an album/song like that is a bright moment, in a dark day full of napalm or other guns!

Saddest comment I have ever seen! Now go play the 9th on  a sunny day when you want to go to the beach! Go play the 5th when you want to go see that game, and the wife wants to go shopping (no steak tonite!!!) and forget the game! C'mon ... those are just realities and have nothing to do with the rain or the weather! 

I can't believe that we're so gullible as to eat that kind of comment! 

I hear you, as well many albums we all enjoy in this musical genre is more somber, dark than the opposite. I guess I might be needed more happy go lucky music for the moment, maybe I'll spin some disco .

I think the album is excellent again from a writing and production view, it is deserving of all the accolades its been getting. Care is amazing!! 

Hi,

This is scary for me ... it's as if we are waiting for a keyboard to jump out all over the place, or a singer go crazy on stage and perform with a codpiece in his face, or some sort of pyrotechnics off the guitar ... you know the stuff that we have become enamored with and think is WHAT PROGRESSIVE MUSIC is all about ... and all it says is that we're bored and we want to be entertained ... and THAT HAS NOTHING to do with the music itself.

At least, it is what I read into it. It is "serious", in its approach, and perhaps they could be a bit easier, but it's hard to not be serious in these kinds of things ... you either are with them, or the whole thing comes off cynic and pathetic, or worse ... another song about a girl on a motorcycle chewing a lollipop ... it just won't fit any more than a polka dot bikini.

One of the hard (and sometimes harsh!) things about meditation, is that you have to get into it ... you can't just go half way and expect results that make sense and help you all along. And all life, martyrdom aside, is really like that ... and in this case it was about a lot of life and death and survival, so the album being "serious" is much more on par with things, than otherwise, and to me, a perfect "spokesperson" for 2020, the year we want to forget!