HOLIDAYS IN EDEN

Like Marillion's second album with Fish, "Fugazi," Marillion's second album with Steve Hogarth, "Holidays in Eden," suffers from "difficult second album" syndrome. The band struggled during the writing of this album because most of the material written for its predecessor, "Seasons End," was written while Fish was still in the band. In other words, Marillion had to start from scratch with a new singer who they have never worked with before. Everything on this record is polished to an almost gaudy degree, thanks to Christopher Neil who also produced the Mike + The Mechanics albums, and his influence has definitely tarnished this album. The opening and closing track are the only songs on the album that I can affirm are prog. The rest of the tracks are typical 90s pop rock that could've totally been played on the radio. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but when I put on a Marillion album, I don't necessarily want to hear ordinary love songs.

The album opens with the atmospheric "Splintering Heart," which is a dynamic, exciting song. As per usual, Steve Rothery's guitar soloing is impeccable. "Cover My Eyes (Pain and Heaven)" starts with a delayed guitar riff that immediately hooks the listener, followed by Steve Hogarth's voice. This song, as well as "No One Can," "Dry Land" (which is a cover of the How We Live song which was Steve Hogarth's previous band), and "Waiting to Happen" demonstrate Marillion's aptitude to write great pop songs. "The Party" and the title track are a bit different, but still have a poppy element that permeates the music. The title track in particular reminds me of Rush in the beginning with the heavy guitar and bass riff paired with the airy synths on top. The album closes with the multipart "100 Nights" suite. The first part, "This Town," is a great rock song. "The Rake's Progress" is an atmospheric interlude that transitions into "100 Nights," which is excellent, and contains a fantastic Steve Hogarth vocal performance.

In conclusion, "Holidays In Eden" is one of the weaker Marillion albums, due to the fact that it's mostly a pop record, even though the pop rock songs are quite good. However, this album shines at the beginning and the end with the prog songs. I want to clarify, just because the songs are prog doesn't make them automatically good, but in this case, the songs are intrinsically better than anything else on the album. "Holidays In Eden," also like "Fugazi," is sandwiched between two masterpieces, "Seasons End" and "Brave," which makes a good album like this pale in comparison.