MISPLACED CHILDHOOD

Again, I agree with one reviewer that says this is the best of the Fish-era Marillion line-up. This is the quintessential prog "concept" album. Basically, it is one long song, connected in 'suite' fashion, with an intermission in the middle (probably just to accommodate to vinyl record sides A and B, before the popularity of CDs). While Genesis' 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway,' and Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' also fall into the prog-concept-album category, this one has the uncanny ability to make the listener think he is listening to one long song, as if to indicate that this is the 'new classical' style of music for the burgeoning of the new millennium (fifteen years beforehand). It has fast, vibrant 'vivace' parts as well as slower, melodic 'andante' sections, characteristic of standard classical pieces. The album as a total package is nearly flawless: its lyric and musicianship has the ability to take the listener into a transcendant state of mind and being. As the second album featuring Ian Mosley on drums, the band really begins to establish its 'rhythm' that would characterize the quality of the subsequent album, 'Clutching at Straws,' as well. If taken as one two-part prog song, this is my favorite 40+ minute prog song of all time. If taken equally as a stellar prog concept-album, this one rivals Genesis' 'Lamb' and Floyd's 'Wall' before it. To quote the rating scale of ProgArchives, Marillion's 'Misplaced Childhood' is an "essential...masterpiece of progressive music."