REAL TO REEL

I've heard lots of good things about marillion and i found this album for 50p at a vinyl store the other day. I have been quite eager to hear this band ever since i've been using this site and this was the first album i have heard by them and quite frankly i wasn't impressed. This is not to say i wont like them, i just generally believe i picked up one of their stinkers.

This is a live album from 1984 (quite early into their career, it seems) and the recording quality is good but i found side 1 very tedious and repetitive but the music was ok, it was just the vocals were absolutely diabolical. There was no sense of emotion, it just sounded like a big dull mess. I was very disapointed to hear a band let down by their vocalist and it sounds like a terrible live piece. The only interesting part of side 1 was the guitar work on "Cinderalla Search". For some reason my version did not have "Emerald Lies" on it so this might be a big loss.

Side 2 showed some definite improvement. Market Square Heroes and Forgotten Sons were good songs and i found vast improvement on the vocals and musician work. I will have to get into some of marillions studio work to enjoy this album more i expect but as it is, this album is distinctly average.