MARBLES

Marbles is an album where Marillion seemingly tried to bring us the fan's consensus of what Marillion should sound like. And apparently, going by the general appreciation of it, they certainly succeeded. Personally I'm not really convinced. They completely disregarded their updated sound and style from Marillion.com and Anoraknophobia and instead returned to the safe but trodden paths of all other Hogarth albums.

The stars are achieved by the strength of the wonderful epic Ocean Cloud. That really is one monster of a song, with excellent guitars and vocals culminating in a very moving chorus. Excellent. There's a few other long tracks such as Invisible Man and Neverland that are excellent as well. But apart from that, this is a fairly uninvolved and predictable Marillion album.