MARILLION

The theme and concepts that revolve around the human story of a working class bloke who fails to keep his life from becoming shambles is a successful formula which in my opinion opened up the possibilities of progressive music to a wider audience who eschewed the strange and freaked-out musical world that had its reign the previous decade. Sadly the touring schedule burned out the band which proved too much for lead singer Fish who would depart after this album in order to pursue a solo career. The album is also different than the last in the fact that unlike "Misplaced Childhood" where the tracks smoothly blended into one another, on CLUTCHING the songs are distinct and take the listener on a roller coaster ride of hooks, riffs and tempos.

For me it's a clean sweep of 5 star albums for Fish-era MARILLION. These four albums represent a cornerstone in the history of progressive rock. Although I would hardly count them as the most progressive and complex that the genre has to offer or even the most original since the Genesis influence is so obvious, that doesn't seem to be the point. They are simply put, a renaissance of melodic and dramatic representations of the human condition and the new bearers of a torch that had been abandoned by money hungry bands tempted by the pop side. Although the neo-prog sound would carry on as would the band itself, I am hard pressed to find anything that equals the melancholic beauty and emotional depth that these first four albums present.

Although MARILLION was accused of blatant Genesis worship from the beginning I find it to be the most true on this album where Fish nails the Gabriel sound more so than on other albums. The swirling synths and guitars bring "Wind And Wuthering" to mind and seems like the next logical continuation of that particular sound that they brought back to life. This album is simply a masterpiece of melodic prowess that flows beautifully from beginning to end. I admit that out of the four Fish-era albums that this one is my least favorite but it is one that nevertheless is beautifully constructed in a manner that makes me want to hear it throughout its entirety when I put it on. Liking less is a relative term in which the other surrounding albums are just so outstanding that despite being in fourth place it still deserves the 5 star mark in my world.

I never liked very much the live versions of some songs that were originally sung by Fish and that were later sung by Steve Hogarth. So, "Kayleigh" sounds to me very different being sung by Hogarth. I prefer this song and other "old" songs being sung by Fish.

"Dry Land" is another Pop Rock ballad from their "Holidays in Eden" album which was previously recorded by Hogarth with another band called "How We Live" in 1987. I don`t like the song very much as it does not sound as a very "typical" song from MARILLION. It is a very "sugar ballad" with very (maybe very much!) "emotional" vocals from Hogarth. It is not a bad song but...

"No One Can" is a very good ballad. It is maybe the best song from that album, with great guitars and keyboards atmospheres (as always). It is a very good Pop Rock song with very good arrangements. I like a lot the recording and mixing of this song.

"A Collection" is another very good "atmospheric" song from MARILLION. I thought that it really was a "love song". But after I read the lyrics I realized that it really is a song with "mixed feelings lyrics". In particular, the guitars by Steve Rothery are very good. This song was not released in the U.K. version of the album, but was released in the U.S. version.

"Splintering Heart", another song from the "Holidays in Eden" album, sounds better played live than in the album. It is a "dark" and "dramatic" song that still has some of the "old" MARILLION`s musical style in some places. But being the first song from that album it really showed very well from the start some of the musical changes that the band had.

Well. It really does not matter if I don`t like very much MARILLION`s music without Fish. The band still is a very good band despite the changes. They have a lot of very loyal fans around the world. Maybe one day I´m going to listen to some of the other albums they recorded with Hogarth after "Holidays in Eden". But I am glad that they have survived as a band for many years after Fish left the band. They deserve it. They are very good musicians.

Thankfully, an epiphany of sorts seemed to have hit between the two works. 'I've lost touch. I shouldn't admit it, but I have...'. With those words, Steve Hogarth seemingly threw away the shackles of trying to stay relevant, and Marillion soared into their first bona fide classic in 7 years.

Marbles could easily have been their best prog album. With the remarkable Ocean Cloud, the aforementioned Invisible Man, and the superlative closer Neverland, this album contains some of their greatest work. Indeed, much of the album is still top drawer material - Fantastic Place, The Only Unforgivable Thing, Angelina and Drilling Holes all crackle with inventiveness and creativity, and excellent performances.

However, like all double albums, there is just too much on it. Genie is superfluous and mawkish offering nothing to the album, and 'Don't Hurt Yourself', whilst the lyric is certainly not bad, is just plain annoying. You're Gone sounds like a slightly better attempt at being a track from Anaraknophobia and The Damage doesn't move me.

However, curiously, the recurring Marbles theme is endearing and overall makes it appear quasi-conceptual. As an album, It could have been a Brave, but just falls short overall. Perhaps less really might have been more in this case. However, when it is good, it is very,very, very good indeed. Neverland remains my all time favourite Marillion moment. One they've still to beat.

In the Holland show, for the first time, the stage has a platform in the middle where Steve Hogarth can walk and be closer to the crowd. In the Montreal show, the light show is more colourful and the set list order has been change to place the song "Montreal" at the end for obvious reason. The DTS sound is nice and you can enjoy it further more in the third Blu-Ray who is a the audio version of the new album. There is also different demos and new takes of the the new album which i am going to listen only once, because of the questionable sound quality.

Is this live release essential to their large live discography? No, but it's another excellent addition to your big collection of Marillion albums...

'The King of Sunset Town' is a great opener that deliciously grows from the quiet instrumental beginning into a solid prog song with pop tendencies. 'Easter' is an emotional, folky ballad which is improved by the more lively final section. The freshness! Then comes the weakest track: I have never enjoyed 'The Uninvited Guest', it sounds nothing but a boring wannabe hit. The title track is fantastic. It has both emotion - approaching sentimento in the underlined environmental message - and the kind of intimate instrumental ambience Marillion was so good at later on (especially on Brave). I love the bright keyboard sounds in it.

'Holloway Girl' and 'Berlin' are rather mediocre tracks that attempt to continue the Fish-era style songwriting including a plot. These songs might work better with Fish on vocals (and in charge of more powerful lyrics, of course). I remember noticing that in the intensive section of 'Berlin' H sounds occasionally like Jim Kerr of Simple Minds. The simple, down-to-earth 'After Me' feels nice - and fresh - at this point of the album. 'Hooks in You' is the catchy hit, quite OK as such but I can live without catchy pop hits. The dramatic closer 'The Space...' is another proggy highlight with 'The King...' and 'Seasons End'. Hogarth's high notes are not always very succesful to me either, but this is definitely one of those Marillion songs I couldn't imagine being done with Fish. Of course with time their style moved further and further away from their original style.

A good start for H-era Marillion, followed at first by a poor, poppy Holidays in Eden, and, through the decades, by a massive discography with a striking uneven-ness. 3½ stars.

Once the closest thing to the "bad-boys" of prog, I always greatly appreciated Fish-era Marillion for their brutal portrayal of indulgences, unashamed poetry, and hugely colorful neo-prog sound. All that is gone with this album.

This is album is the auditory equivalent of being chloroformed. Instead of the Fish-era edginess, we get dialed back new-age music that tries to be mature or adult, but falls flat due to H's mediocre lyrics. You will actually have to twist your stereo's volume knob to the maximum just to hear most this album, only to have to race over and turn it down when the band actually plays a loud part. And these "loud" parts are not any less boring, because the band refuses to play anything above 60 beats per minute here and can't seem to write a hook to save their lives.

While early Marillion was classified by awesome new-age production, a crazy assortment of synthesizers, punchy bass and live-sounding drums, this album is classified by lacking all of those elements. The music here simply never does anything interesting. Slow, monotonous, washed out, quiet, while never actually being actively terrible. In fact, the only thing saving from a one-star review is that its to boring to even offend me. Just completely unstimulating.

Too slow and quiet to rock, too devoid of hooks to be memorable, too long to endure. The music here is not the least bit progressive or fun. At best it might make background music, if you can actually hear the blasted thing, quiet as it is. Not recommended for anything other than a sleeping aid.

However, if you're the kind of person who enjoys overlong, melancholy, unvarying drones of pure drabness (see: Night by GAZPACHO), you'll love this one!

2/5

It took me a while to finally listen to Fugazi. Between the brilliance and awe of Fish's latter two albums with the band and the rather messy Genesis-worship of their debut, I wasn't really sure what to expect from the only record in Fish's time that wasn't critically acclaimed. The fact that I've never liked Script for a Jester's Tear has always been rather confusing to me, since it's nearly always listed up as high as Misplaced Childhood or Clutching at Straws on everyone else's lists. So I guess I was glad, but also rather confused, to find that Fugazi certainly is better than the debut, at least in my ears. It contains much of the same theatricality and Peter Gabriel/Hammill worship as Script did, but it seemed to break away into the style developed on Misplaced Childhood enough for me to enjoy it.

But let's be honest here, why do I really prefer this to Script, because a lot of the songs have a lot of the same problems, and there are still critically acclaimed tracks that I really don't get on this album. Firstly, the production is heightened. It's still 80's production, so it still blows rather hard at times, and piles on the cheese in layers during tracks like "Punch & Judy", but Ian Mosley's kit is sounding ridiculously arena, and as cheesy as this is, I do really enjoy it. There's a distinctly infuriating reliance on one synth tone throughout this album, the one that makes an appearance at the start of "Emerald Lies", and several times throughout the record ? it just doesn't fit with the theatrical and emotional music that Fish is trying to pull out. And the fantastic stretchy synth that I love from later albums only makes an appearance during "Assassing", although brief moments come into "She Chameleon" and "Incubus". But in the end, it's really just "Jigsaw" that saves this album from the mediocrity of Script. Or, to be more specific, the chorus of Jigsaw, that absolutely flawless melody, with Fish singing as brilliantly as he ever has. I really wish that the instrumentation during the chorus matched the phenomenal vocal performance, because with just the deep bass and puffy synth, it's hardly anthemic, but I guess that just goes to show how strong that melody is. There's even a key change at the end! Man, I love 80's key changes.

The rest of the album is honestly just a slightly-more-competent Script For A Jester's Tear, with the same meandering tracks and the same strange melodies. Fish gets going on his Peter Hammill impression good here, "She Chameleon" being completely off of The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage (albeit with a lot more synth and cheese). Fish spends half of the track shouting words in unison with himself spoiler: click to read, and the other half being as dramatic as he can with minor organ arpeggios backing. Aside from "Jigsaw", this is probably the strongest track here, although both tracks feel as if they hold the same mood throughout and don't really change, which makes them rather boring after a while. The ending of "She Chameleon" is rather excellent, as is the closing minute or so of "Emerald Lies", both parts reminding me of moments during the two albums that would follow.

But as for positive things about this record, that's about it. Rothery's still on his game as an excellent soloist, but I don't think he's ever been off - Jigsaw's solo is certainly one of his best. But a lot of this record suffers from the same things that Script did, in terms of the pacing and generally rather boring passages, particularly evident in the two 8-minute closing tracks. Neither of them really feel as if they are going anywhere, it's just music to accompany Fish's rambling. And although he is my favourite lyricist, and tracks like "She Chameleon" hold some excellent lines, his lyrics are not enough to keep these tracks from being incredibly dry. I had this same problem with a lot of the songs on Script, they regularly felt like meandering compositions of themes piled together, rather than flowing tracks. It's odd, then, to think that Misplaced Childhood ? a 40 minute song released just a year later ? was such a shining example of how to arrange and execute an epic, yet I'm nearly asleep by the time we've hit the title track here.

I'm glad that Marillion found their feet with Misplaced Childhood, and produced a timeless classic with Clutching At Straws, but Fugazi really just feels like what it is ? an intermediary. It's got some great moments, sure, but it also drags on a hell of a lot, and any emotion Fish pumps in with his vocal performance is sucked out by the cheesy as hell production style (which, although I like, really doesn't fit some of these tracks). It's certainly better than Script, which is one of those records that I just don't get the praise for, but it's no masterpiece.

6.7/10

Originally written for my Facebook page/blog: www.facebook.com/neoprogisbestprog