SEASONS END

"Seasons end" was the first of the post Fish offerings from Marillion, with Steve Hogarth taking over on vocals. Hogarth's voice and vocal style is somewhat different to his predecessor, and any remaining links with the Genesis sound were roundly eliminated with Fish's departure.

The album finds the band moving towards a slightly softer overall sound, with the title track in particular being virtually a ballad. The song, a message about global warming, starts softly then moves through powerful choruses, and a great keyboard section. Having appeared to finish, it is then moves in to a coda with a long acoustic section, which slowly builds again before the final fade. A wonderfully structure song which clearly demonstrated that this version of Marillion came with new and fresh ideas.

There is a consistency to the remaining tracks which means that you'll either enjoy the whole thing, or you won't enjoy much of it at all. "The uninvited guest" is lyrically a somewhat inappropriate, if slightly humorous dig at the departed Fish (inappropriate especially because it was being sung by someone who had not actually been in the band with him).

In all, a confident venture into the brave new world without the "fifteen stone first footer", which, while it may have caused a few of the band's fans to jump ship, reassured the vast majority (in the same way as "A trick of the tail" did with Genesis) that the band had plenty of life left in it yet.

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