HOLIDAYS IN EDEN

It's occasionally been said that H-era Marillion is such a different prospect from Fish-era that it's best to think of them as two different bands - and indeed, in interviews H has revealed that there's been points when some of the band members have advocated a name change to finally put journalistic comparisons to the Fish era to rest. If we had to assign a category on progarchives to H-era Marillion, where would we place it? I'd be tempted to suggest it'd go in crossover prog as opposed to neo-prog, since they've taken on a heavier indie-pop influence than more or less any neo-prog outfit I can think of - and the transition to their new sound began on Holidays In Eden.

Holidays is a transitional album, and there's no doubt that it suffers for it. In some ways, in fact, it was even more of a transitional album than Seasons' End, since a lot of the music for that had already been workshopped for the scrapped fifth album with Fish. (Essentially, Fish took the lyrics and set it to new music to knock out his first solo album, whilst the band cooked up new lyrics for the music they had and had H sing them.)

Whilst I think it was probably necessary for the band to delve into the sort of unashamedly indie-pop musical territory previously explored by Steve Hogarth's band How We Live - both as part of the process of integrating H into the band and getting to grips with his own musical approach and as a means of finding a way to evolve their sound for the next phase of their career - it's hard not to acknowledge that there's some serious sag around the middle of the running order, with poppy numbers such as No One Can, the title track, Dry Land and Waiting to Happen coming one after the other without a more progressive break in between.

Still, whilst I will freely admit that this album is not quite as good as any of the band's studio releases of the Fish era - or the heights the H era would soon attain with classics like Brave or Afraid of Sunlight - I wouldn't call it the unabashed disaster it's so often written off as. Splintering Heart is a great opener which shows a combination of a progressive approach in evolving the band's sound on the one hand and a connection to their heritage and earlier work on the other, whilst the closing triptych of This Town/The Rake's Progress/100 Nights is intriguing - I like how the increasing murkiness and progginess of the music parallels the corruption of its protagonist, and in its conclusion it seems to point the way directly to the sort of territory the band would explore on Brave. The Party, whilst you'd never mistake it for a neo-prog song, is hardly empty pop either, being a moody contemplation of teenage loss of innocence.

On top of all that, I find that many of the poppier numbers on the album - Cover My Eyes, No One Can, and Dry Land - are genuinely moving. Indeed, despite having a lukewarm reception on release, many pieces from this album have ended up becoming fan favourites at live gigs, though this may be down to two issues - first off, the band have added some embellishments and improvements to the songs over the years (in particular to the This Town triptych) which perhaps bring out their finer points, and secondly the approach to production on this album isn't quite what it could be - EMI paired the band up with a pop- oriented producer in order to encourage them to write a hit or two, but the approach taken obscures what's really interesting and unique about the songs, progressive and mainstream alike.

On the whole, though, Holidays In Eden does at least tick the box that every other Marillion album before it ticked: once again, the band prove themselves masters at capturing a unique atmosphere on each album, and when the mood takes me I'm first in the queue for another listen to it. I'd encourage all Marillion fans to give this one a second chance - even a third or a fourth one! - because as well as being historically important to the development of the band's sound it's also a pretty good album, but at the same time I'd never recommend that someone who's new to the group should start out by trying out this one.