MARILLION.CO.UK

Not commercially available.

With the purchase of initial copies of the "Marillion.com" album, came a voucher to send away for this free album when it was available. Sure enough, it came winging through the post a few months later.

The album, which came in a cardboard slipcase, is primarily a sampler for five of Marillion's lesser know fan-club only releases. By and large these are live recordings, which may (or indeed may not) be of interest to fans, but for which a commercial release could not be justified.

The opening two tracks are probably the most interesting, being unplugged versions of "The answering machine" from "Radiation", and "Afraid of sunrise" from the "Afraid of sunlight" album. "Afraid of Sunrise" was the softer of the two "Afraid.." tracks on that album, so the unplugged effect is less noticeable than on "Answering machine". The superb title track from "Afraid of sunlight" appears later on as a pretty faithful live rendition. The collection is rounded off by a couple of live performances taken from the "Zodiac" set.

The multi-media section of the disc includes two further live performances ("Deserve" and "The bell in the sea") plus a rather superficial interview with the band, which serves to introduce the members.

Given the limited availability of this album, there is little point in recommending (or otherwise!) it. I would say however that it is undeniably for fans and collectors only.

Note: There appear to be several different versions of this release.

My copy of this EP was sent free of charge from Racket records. It contains Hogarth era concerts at The Walls, Caracas and Piston Broke. The most entertaining track is The Space which the original version contains keyboard-driven music with Hogarth excellent voice which really fits the music. I think, if Marillion maintains the kind of music they make is similar like The Space, I am sure old fans of Marillion would continue to stay with the band. Although the other tracks were performed nicely but it does not sound like a progressive music. The CD is actually, I believe, to be used as promo of their upcoming marillion.com as it features Deserve as one of the songs.

New fans of Marillion who knew the band only after Hogarth replaced Fish, would typically say that Brave is the best Marillion album during Hogarth era. For this, The gReat Escape can serve the purpose nicely. I have to admit that this is anice track even though it's hard to believe that Marillion whom I knew from Script is now playing ambient music like The Great Escape.

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW