ANORAK IN THE UK LIVE

So just how good can a live recording really sound ? Well my friends "Anorak Live In The UK" would have to be probably the best sounding live album I have ever heard. Apparently this concert was mic'd using a very new and unusual method which sounds incredible and rich. This is MARILLION captured at their best doing many of their great songs live including material from "Marillion.com", "Afraid Of Sunlight", "Brave", "This Strange Engine", "Radiation" and of course the album in tour at the time "Anoraknophobia". What else can I say really except that this is just amazing music and the live sounds add nice variations to the studio tracks and in many ways this is the essential MARILLION. Absolutely essential album for your collection.

As good as Made Again is, Anorak In The UK (specifically the 2 disc version from Racket Records) is the definitive live disc from Marillion. I thought Made Again played it too close to the vest; whereas, Anorak tossed in a surprise or two. Compound this with it's amazing production and overall energy, it makes for a must have for all Marillion fans.

Recorded on the Anoraknophobia tour, it would stand to reason that it includes several tracks. The thing is, the live versions sound better than the studio. Never more is this more apparent than "Separated Out" and "Between You And Me". They appear to be a bit more raw and livlier than the studio. "Quartz" would qualify as well. "If My Heart Were A Ball..." and "Map Of The World" are pretty true to the original, but sound great nonetheless. The 2 disc version has "This Is The 21st Century" and "When I Meet God" performed in front of a very lucky group of fans at The Racket Club. I much prefer the spacier studio version of "21st" to live.

The surprises are the inclusion of "Go!" from the mediocre (by Marillion standards) Marillion.com, "Out Of This World" from Afraid Of Sunlight, and "Man Of A Thousand Faces" from This Strange Engine. "Go!" and "Man Of A Thousand Faces" requires some samples towards the end to replicate the incredible conclusions of each song (and if you've heard "Man Of A Thousand Faces", you know what I'm talking about), but I think adding the extra help is warranted in this case.

The usual suspects of "The Great Escape", "Waiting To Happen", and "Afraid Of Sunlight" are included, but it's always great to receive a visit from these old friends. "Afraid Of Sunlight" leads right into the always emotional "Mad" from the Brave album, which is a classic case of how a band such as Marillion can produce something so unearthly beautiful, and something so crazed and hyper like "Mad". The brilliance of this band still boggles my mind.

Anorak isn't 100% perfection, however. I wouldn't mind hearing something else other than "Rich" or "Answering Machine" simply because they do nothing for me. I would've rather heard "A Few Words For The Dead", "The Party", or even "Uninvited Guest". That being said, Anorak In The UK is still an excellent inclusion to anyones collection.

I was quite sceptical about this live "Anoraknophobia". The studio album was not really a great experience but, intelligently three of the best songs of this album are featured here : "Separated Out", "Between You & Me", and "If My Heart Were A Ball It Would Roll Uphill". Only "The Fruit Of The Wild Rose" is missing (I am referring to the good songs only here).

Two BRILLIANT moments are available on this CD. "Seperated Out" and "Between You & Me". Extremely wild and passionate. Very few times have I been laudatory about Mark II Marillion, but these are very good songs (I mentioned this already in my review of the studio album). It has of course nothing to do with their usual repertoire (Mark II, I mean) : great rock songs were not too many. They should maybe have investigated more into that direction...

Instead of "The Fruit", we'll get the horrific and funky "Quartz". As weak as on the studio work. "Map Of The World" sounds a little better. At least it rocks a little bit more. "If My Heart... " has been converted into a hard-rock piece of music. Funky-metal if you prefer at least during the first five minutes. After this, it can be used as narcoleptic.

I'm afraid that "Out Of This World" is as insipid as on ..."Afraid Of The Sunlight".

Once you're through the emotionless intro for "King", the whole band starts to really kick your a..., and rocks again alright during the instrumental parts.

"The Great Escape" from "Brave" is also a great improvement in comparison with the studio version. Rothery's guitar solo is incredibly good. You just need to stand the first minute and its karaoke mood to discover it; another good moment of this live recording.

"Answering Machine" is as trashy as the original. Noise annoys.

The original idea was to release a double album, but their record comany decided to release a single CD version as well. They also wanted one track of this version to be unrealeased. The band was not in favour of the idea, but decided to include "Easter". Since I have based my review on the double CD version, I can not judge this version of "Easter".

From five out of ten, I will upgrade this live album to three stars. Be aware that this is not really for progheads since the best songs featured here sound almost hard-rocking.

Anorak in the UK is a great live album from the Anoraknophobia tour, an album which counts as one of my Hogarth-era favourites. Marillion steps on the gas and plays most of the Anoraknophobia album and a fine selection of older songs.

All versions are very truthful to the originals, it makes them of little use to anyone but ardent Marillion fans, but from their perspective this sure is a most satisfactory release. The band sounds solid and energetic throughout. The real emotional highlights come from the Afraid of Sunlight though, which proves again that it is the real highlight of this band from the post-Fish era.

If you're a Marillion fan and if you like Anoraknophobia, this is a live album to get, in all other cases, you can do without.

This is a very high quality live release finds Marillion as boisterous and as forceful live as they'd been at any point since Fish left. The renditions of material from Radiation, Marillion.com and Anoraknophobia lend new life to those compositions, overcoming the occasionally patchy production values which at points caused problems for the earlier two albums in that trilogy (especially Radiation), whilst the occasional snippet from Brave, Afraid of Sunlight or This Strange Engine helps put the band's recent experiments in context and makes them seem like not such a departure for Marillion after all.

If you decide to go for this one, I recommend tracking down the 2CD version from the band themselves if you can, because the extra material is worth it and all you're missing out from the 1CD version is a rendition of Easter - and that's been on so many live Marillion albums that you really don't need yet another version of it if you've collected more than two or three H-era live discs already.