MISPLACED CHILDHOOD

Surpassing "Fugazi"'s quality was indeed a difficult task but Fish and his companions managed to do so, creating probably one of the most brilliant and successful albums that this band has released, although they did it in a quite unexpected way. While "Script for a Jester's Tear" and "Fugazi" were speedy and energetic albums, "Misplaced Childhood" is a melancholic, atmospheric and romantic concept record, which, as opposite of what could be commonly thought, in this case it is something good.

Another important point here is that Fish shows all of his potential as a writer, composer, and specially, as a vocalist. As I have repeatedly mentioned in other Marillion reviews, I'm not a fan of Fish's vocals, but in this case, he finally commited to perform a serious vocal work.

In terms of music, Rothery's work is now more calm and evocative and synths now are not specially used to perform solos, as it happened in the previous albums, but instead to create the characteristic atmosphere which defines this record

Talking about the songs, we have two quite old known ones: "Kayleigh" and "Lavender". The first one is truly one of the legends of progressive music and one of the hymns of the eighties. Songs like "Bitter Suite" or "Blind Curve" (attention to Rothery here) show in pure state the melancholic recurrent sound I mentioned before. Others like "Heart of Lothian" (probably along with "Kayleigh" my favourite song from the album) and "Childhood's End" try to rebuild in some sense a more epic and higher spirit, as seen in the precedent efforts. If we talk about B-sides we have another sets of magnificent songs. Special attention to "Lady Nina", simply delicious.

So, this is probably the peak of Fish era, and as such, a compulsory get from any fan of concerned and melodic music.