MARBLES

This album is one of those rare, special things which only comes along once every few years. Emotional, powerful, deep. Not particularly progressive, but I don't think being non-progressive automatically loses it a few points.

This is one of those albums which I would love to, really love to give 5/5, but I just can't bring myself to do it. There are some truly outstanding, beautiful tracks on here. The finest are Neverland (quite possibly one of the best songs, ever), Fantastic Place, You're Gone, Ocean Cloud (get the 2CD version of this over the 1CD version if you possibly can - this 17-minute epic is why!) and Don't Hurt Yourself. That's a lot of incredible songs. By themselves, those tracks total at 48 minutes, which for many artists would be a full-length album. The Invisible Man, another epic, is also very strong, a brooding, atmospheric track. That ups the very-goodness on the album to just over an hour. But, of course, there's still another 36 minutes of music...

And those other tracks (nine of them) aren't that great. Some aren't that good. Genie, Angelina are good but not particularly memorable. The Only Unforgiveable Thing, The Damage and Drilling Holes are rather dull and add little to the album. Marbles I - IV are four short, forgettable tracks. They do little and are rather unspectacular pop songs.

All in all a very, very good album with some impossibly beautiful songs on. It misses that coveted fifth star because of the lack of consistency, due to the inclusion of some rather unspectacular songs. Nevertheless, this album is highly recommended for those after something less technical and more emotional.