MARILLION

Fiendishly, the band come up with some really tough choices for the fans here and there, with the crowd genuinely split at some points - for instance, they end up playing both Easter and The Great Escape by popular demand - and the gig as a whole is a lively, fun affair with the band in a playful mood. (Perhaps the funniest part comes towards the start, when H is explaining that because the crowd will be choosing between preselected pairs of songs they won't be able to vote for Grendel - at which point Steven Rothery starts teasing the crowd with the haunting opening guitar melody from that very song!)

It isn't the tightest gig Marillion have ever performed - but then, due to the conceit it was never going to be - but a solid set nonetheless.

Secondly the influences are more diverse here as we hear at the beginning with some Indian drumming and interesting mood building before it finally turns into a kind of early 80s sounding new wave meets Genesis type of thing. Fish sounds a little less Gabriel meets Hammill and has a beautiful range as he poetically prances up and down the scales. I really love how the keyboards weave around his vocals while the rest of the band keeps the backbone of the rhythms completely solid. There is also a hint of arpeggio metal construction in tracks like "Emerald Lies" that kind of reminds me of Queensryche and some Gilmour inspired guitar runs here and there.

Although this seems to be one of those hate or love type albums I have to admit I fall on the love it side. I think the album flows nicely from beginning to end keeping things interesting on the sonic journey with Fish and company giving their imaginative tales a beautiful musical form. Maybe this album isn't as popular because of some of the poppier influences that abound? Not sure. For me this is magnificent music that picked up the pieces that the 70s groups threw out and left behind. For me MARILLION did a better job than post-Tresspass Genesis did with this sound. Genesis may have invented it but MARILLION continued to expand it and perfect it and on this album they make it their own. Excellent album!!!

This is a great album with a wonderful steady flow. There are no real stand out moments, but consistently good. BUT, this will never be their greatest memory. I cannot understand how some people can think that. CD1 gets a 4 star because of the dreamy state it puts you in, and the fantastic flow of the music (shame about lack of guitar input from Rothers or it could be a 5) CD2 stays in the box most of the time. Yawn. 2 Star (2.5 if it was an option)

Overall 3 stars (3.5 if available!)

Marbles has some great tracks that compare to the best material of any rock band. In particular The Invisible Man is a haunting, enigmatic masterpiece. Don't Hurt Yourself is another classic - a brilliant evocation to live in the moment and let the past - both good and bad times - go. Ocean Cloud and Neverland are two more fantastic, long songs, combining intelligent, emotionally-charged lyrics with beautiful, dramatic music.

All the other tracks here are good, often quite mellow, melodic tunes, but I don't think any other song scales the heights of those four stand-out tracks. As such, I think Marbles is an excellent addition to any prog collection, but I don't think it quite qualifies as a masterpiece.

Nb. this is a review of the 2CD version - the single CD doesn't contain Ocean Cloud, one of the very best songs, so I strongly recommend the two disc version.

Although Fish does nail the Peter Gabriel thing quite spectacularly, I would have to add that he sounds much more like Peter Hammill at times. With strong and lengthy compositions and energetic band members delivering with gusto this is one of my favorite albums in the whole neo-prog subgenre. Fish has never sounded better and despite my usual dislike of overtly borrowing of another's past workings I have to admit this album delivered the right thing at the right time and was done extremely well at that. One of those cases where I like the influenced better than the influencers.