UNCLE FISH & THE CRYPT CREEPERS

I'll be honest, I bought this album because it was a steal of a price ($8) and because I was curious about what Fish's solo career sounded like live. After the release of the overly strenuous second solo album Internal Exile, Fish embarked on a tour that would produce 6 (that's right... 6) live albums, with this one being the final in that series. Tracks from Vigil in the Wilderness of Mirrors and Internal Exile are featured, but a good chunk of his set is reserved for seminal Marillion tracks, such as Fugazi and Forgotten Sons. The band that backs Fish on this record are eclectic in sound, but they fill the void brilliantly with note for note renditions of the repetoir brought forth to the audience.

Opening with Vigil and closing with the chanting of "Ring around the rosie they all fall down", this album packs a punch with emotion packed into every second. The raw energy and prowess of the band is in full effect during every second of every song, especially during the heavier sections like Tongues and the solo section to Incubus. The setlist provided is a near perfect in balance of old material and new (with a tad more solo material than Marillion songs), and the band tackles each song with sonic storms that assault the listener. My favorite songs on the live album itself are Tongues, which features nice unison guitars backed by a malevolent keyboard rhythm and some stunning lyrics and vocals from Fish, and Fugazi, which has all the power of the original track, but somehow I'm not convinced that Frank Usher and Robin Boult can handle the job as well as Steve Rothery does.

Overall, this live album is a perfect amalgamation of old era Fish and new era Fish. The two studio albums before show that Marillion wasn't a necessity for Fish to get his point across with his words. But his old Marillion songs maintain that shine that they did when they were being toured with the band itself. My only gripe with this album is it is a tad quiet in the sections where Fish talks with the crowd (and there are many sections of that). And the only other thing is, there are 5 other live albums from this time available, and most of them have identical sets. If you have one of them that isn't this one, then there really is no point in owning this one. The music and the performance itself deserves a 4/5, but I can't bring myself to give it that deserved 4 because in all seriousness, there are 5 albums to choose from. 3/5.