PISTON BROKE

Recorded during the '97 tour of France and Germany, MARILLION have released a real live stunner which I would highly recommend to all fans of Hogarth era MARILLION. This double live CD explores many of their fan favorite tracks and of course emphasizes their "This Strange Engine" album. Highlites for me are "Gazpacho", "Afraid Of Sunlight", "Bell In The Sea", "Sugar Mice" and "This Strange Engine" which are delivered with great power and energy. Both of the CD's run like an actual live show and the different concert excepts work very well actually and are invisible to the listener.

Capturing the This Strange Engine tour of Europe with songs recorded at dates in France and Germany, Piston Broke does a decent job of editing the material together into a convincing concert experience despite the varying gigs represented. The recording quality is average but not exceptional, being rougher and readier than either the live material captured on the EMI-era Official Bootleg boxed sets or later live efforts recorded by Racket Records, but everyone's got to start somewhere, and it's a touch better to my ears than very early Racket releases like Live In Glasgow.

The set list itself has a heavy emphasis on songs from Brave, Afraid of Sunlight, and of course This Strange Engine, so it represents the the best H-era material they had at the time. Look out for Pete Trewavas' engaging little bass solo before This Strange Engine, and the version of The Bell In the Sea which compares favourably with the studio version of that particular B-side.

It's a good release if you want something from the This Strange Engine tour, and a great one if you particularly like the direction of that album and are interested in takes on the rest of the repertoire which shift the sound of the songs a little more towards the melodic indie-prog sound of that album, but it's hampered by the recording quality enough that I'd say it's a three and a half star release at best.