VIGIL IN A WILDERNESS OF MIRRORS

Famously, Fish left Marillion after they'd already made some headway on putting together ideas for the new album - so whilst the band's musical ideas ended up taking shape on Seasons' End, Fish took the lyrical concepts he'd been working on, got new musical backing, and presented them on Vigil In a Wilderness of Mirrors.

Unfortunately, those who might hope for a more old school neo-prog direction from Fish's solo career compared to the direction Marillion were taking with Steve Hogarth were in for a disappointment with this one: it's clear that both sides of the split were keen to explore new musical territory. Whilst the title track is a good album opener, it's also quite clearly less complex and more mainstream-inclined than any of the Fish-era Marillion albums, and it's clear that for the rest of the album Fish was intent on taking an accessible and commercialised art-pop course for this phase of his career.

That said, if you take it as an art rock album with neo-prog leanings rather than a more purist neo-prog effort, the album comes across better. In some instances it feels like the songs could have been contracted a bit, with Fish drawing out his ideas longer than they can sustain, and it took me a while to warm to lead single Big Wedge, whose brass section is a little cheesy. It's probably intended that way - based on Fish's lyrics it's likely he was trying to apply a big brash Hollywood-style sheen to the number because it's a protest song against the cultural influence of American capitalism, in which case he succeeds admirably at creating a nasty plastic commercial product, but I do find it a bit of a speed-bump to my enjoyment of the album.

I guess the high regard this debut is held in by Fish fans is a consequence of three things. First, there's the natural relief that the great man's first solo album wasn't a complete disaster (and again, I stress that it really wasn't, it's just not up to the standards of either his work with Marillion or the superior albums he would release in later ). Secondly, there's the poor reception of the immediately following albums - which didn't follow a radically different direction from this one, but did so less convincingly - which naturally prompted people to look back on this one favourably compared with them.

The third factor is that though taken as a whole the album is quite patchy, some of the original songs on here are great. The Company is perhaps the best moment, a folk-rock anthem with neo-prog leanings and an epic production which is still one of Fish's signature solo songs - and why shouldn't it be, when it's this good? On balance I think I can give the album another half-star on the strength of The Company alone, and the closing trio of Family Business, View From the Hill, and Cliché mean that the album ends on a strong note.

Overall, I think this album was as good as it needed to be at the time, but no better. Fish didn't absolutely need to bring out a masterpiece at this point in time - though it would have been nice - all he needed to do was demonstrate to the public that he had the potential to make it as a solo artist. Vigil shows flashes of this potential without ever fully realising it. To be honest, I've always thought Fish's solo career didn't really get interesting until Sunsets on Empire, so I wasn't surprised recently to read an old Classic Rock interview in which the man himself said his solo career didn't really get onto an even keel until that point. Whilst I think both Marillion and Fish both ended up having excellent post-split careers in the long term, I find it hard to deny that at least at the beginning Marillion were clearly in the lead; certainly, I find myself turning to Seasons' End much more than I do to Vigil.