MARILLION

The album starts with the eight-minute opus 'King of Sunset Town' which is a sprawling and diverse piece of music and lyricism. Thematically similar to earlier works like 'The Web' with high connotations of dejection and moodiness is balanced nicely with segments of fantastical elevation. Keyboardist Mark Kelly is consistent as usual but is now taking full advantage of more modernized keyboard sounds, particularly during the intro section. Guitarist Steve Rothery also shines with usual displays of melodic nuances throughout the track. Indubitably a strong opener and the proggiest track on the album. 'Easter' is an electric- acoustic pop song which was released as a single after its release. The song begins as a gentle acoustic ballad before gradually building up tension into a climactic chorus, which is followed by an extended heartfelt guitar solo which is simulataneously passionate and sedative. The song closes with an upbeat reprise of the main theme with accompanying scat- singing. 'The Uninvited Guest' is another catchy pop song with hard rock elements similar to that of 'Incommunicado' from their previous album Clutching at Straws. 'Seasons End' is the representative track of the album; another eight-minute opus which is very slow throughout. First half of the song is very emotional and dramatic which is chock-full of crashing cymbals, guitar chords and cascading synth pads. The second half takes on a more quirky vibe with Mark Kelly taking centre-stage with polyrhythmic marimba-sounding swirls before the track gradually fades out and closes Side One.

Side Two opens with 'Holloway Girl' which is a fairly slow yet upbeat and catchy song which is led by a pervasive delayed guitar riff. 'Berlin' is the third-longest song on the album which retains true to the album's dramatic and ambient quality, - but not quite as breathtaking as Easter nor nowhere near as progressive and diverse as King of Sunset Town or Seasons End. 'After You' is a gorgeous ballad which is definitely one of my personal favourite for it showcases a sublime vocal performance by Hogarth and the lyrics are very sincere and sweet without sounding too saccharine or sappy. 'Hooks in You' was the leading single from the album and definitely the sole AOR-styled rocker on the album, - although in reflection it doesn't age too well in comparison with the rest of the album. 'The Space...' closes the album with a punch as it enriches the listener with its somber, reflective yet life-affirming quality. Rich in orchestral textures and layering, the six-minute slow epic ends with the universal lyric "Everybody lives and loves and laughs and cries and eats and sleeps and grows and dies.." giving the whole album a very earthy quality.

Overall; - a splendid release at a very difficult time for the group. Inevitably hesitant to stray too far away from their roots yet they clearly had an adamant desire to progress and evolve beyond the sprawling progressive-rock epics of the early 80s into a more balanced and streamlined group with ambient textures. A very solid record, a key release and an essential listen for even the most ardent Fish-era Marillion fanatic.

Since it feels awkward for me to write a review for such heavily reviewed album, I first thought to write one for the 'Kayleigh' single. I'm getting tired of reviewing singles so much, so here's my very subjective view on this famous Neo Prog milestone. I bought it on CD several years later at the early 90's, but it isn't my favourite of the Fish era, that honour goes to Clutching at Straws. And up to this day my reception of Misplaced Childhood is somewhat ambivalent. Like many other prog listeners, I find it a bit cheesy as a whole, with the super-clean production, sugared synth carpets and sentimental guitar solos.

'Pseudo Silk Kimono' is irritatingly all cheesy synths, but it functions as a conceptual mood-setter, followed seamlessly by the radio-friendly song for lost love, 'Kayleigh' (which I have as a ringtone on my phone nowadays!), which is seamlessly followed by another radio-friendly love song, naively romantic 'Lavender'. What is this? A potpourri of pop songs? Luckily, 'Bitter Suite' and 'Heart of Lothian' are multi-part compositions with various moods. I love the quietest, more mystified parts ("A spider wanders aimlessly...", and later, "It's getting late for scribbling and scratching on the paper...") whereas 'Blue Angel' and 'Wide Boy' sections are really cheesy, especially for the guitar solos. On the next album there's a lot more diversity in guitar and keyboard sounds. Is Misplaced Childhood perhaps over-produced in a way, emphasizing the sentimental concept?

The album is practically two side-long, pauseless entities, and that's definitley one of its strengths. The second part (side of the vinyl) contains the ultimate highlight, but there are also songs that feel like fillers to me. 'Waterhole (Expresso Bongo)', terribly boring. 'Lords of the Backstage' is refreshingly bold and bright. 'Blind Curve' is a magnificent journey into deep, sore emotions, and finally there's new blood on guitar parts too. The melody in 'Mylo' is spellbinding, and the creepily quiet section 'Perimeter Walk' gives goose bimples. Unfortunately the 'Threshold' section returns to the cheesiness and the similarily wailing guitar solo by numbers heard on the first side. 'Childhoods End?' is a fine, sunny and powerful catharsis after all the dark emotions the concept album has gone through. The synth solo at its end sounds very Genesis-like. But for me 'White Feather' is a boring anti-climax.

This is definitely an important album, but the certain weaknesses and the overall cheesiness make me round my 3½ stars downwards. This is not to say I wouldn't understand five-star ratings perfectly well!

The oddest aspect of the record is that it seems to be light on the big, anthemic hooks; and tends to be reflective. Not that it's not dynamic; and there are moments when it all kicks in that it has rather a lot of impact, but for a record with such an aggressive title and concept - that I wholeheartedly approve of - it's more brooding than outright angry and that's unexpected. Marillion can still turn up the heat (Gaza proving it), so it seems surprising to see the Rothery going for a more textural role than an in-your-face one. Mark Kelly is terrific throughout and manages to sound very fresh.

I think a bit more repetition might have made this an easier swallow - there's no choruses, in fact, there are lots of sections. Think the Misplaced Childhood structure without the chordal repetition between parts of side 1 and 2. It's perhaps fairer to think of FEAR as a politically charged Tales from Topographic Oceans. Its a meandering, long-form work created of many sections that work to a common end. The opening, El Dorado is very strong, with a Tull-like intro, segueing through a STCBM style part - The Gold - which culminates in a classic Rothery solo that could have come off of Marbles or Afraid of Sunlight. The rest of the track feels reminiscent of Ocean Cloud, with shorter vignettes making up the rest of the song. Notable is the lovely lyric at the end of Grandchildren of Apes; which is beautiful and optimistic.

White Paper and Living in FEAR are shorter tracks that carry the atmosphere between the three epic tracks. The Leavers has some lovely atmosphere but I tend to lose concentration a little during the song. It meanders a little too much. Some lovely keyboards. In the wake of the whole Brexit thing, it's somewhat switched lyrically - the 'leavers' being seeming more progressive people and the 'remainers' being those who wish to remain as they traditionally did. Nothing to do with Marillion, obviously, but heard post July 2016, it seems a bit skewed!

The New Kings does tend to be the saving grace; with the greater sense of urgency. After the whole 'We are the leavers/remainers' lyrics, one kind of wishes for something other than 'we are the new kings' - that said, it is a hook, I suppose. Small gripe, and not worth too much thought.

The piece has a lot of atmosphere and drama, with the greatest dynamic variation provided in a single epic on this record.

I had hoped for a true classic; and it might win me yet. I think a single LP with El Dorado on one side and The New Kings on the other may have been the album I hoped for. Less might have been more after all. Still, on what is presented here, it's good to see Marillion holding their long-form card aloft again and making purposeful music.

Not the best political LP this winter - that crown goes to Anubis' The Second Hand - but it's a very good record in its own right.

Marillion has always been more direct and unflinching in its encounters with Everyday Life (see: "Clutching at Straws", one of the higher-ranked albums in these Archives), and never more so than in this 67-minute criticism of The State of Things today. In classic Prog fashion the album opens quietly, with a gentle prologue invoking the poet William Blake ("the enchanted English walled garden", so forth). But the Dark Satanic Mills now threatening Blake's Anglo-Eden are geo-political, multi-corporate, and driven by insatiable, selfish policies of profit and greed.

This is one of those wordy albums that requires your undivided attention; otherwise it's a long haul across a very deep, evenly-graded rut. Not unlike a lot of Neo-Prog it draws musical and thematic inspiration from post-"Animals" PINK FLOYD, with far more unity of purpose than the Roger Waters-led group, but also with the same maudlin chords, the same sleepwalking tempos, and a similar, strident preoccupation with lyrical content over actual songwriting.

You might think all the moral outrage expressed in the text would extend to some equally indignant music. But this is the plushest hour of agit-prop you'll likely ever hear, full of the band's trademark soaring guitars and orchestral synths, arranged with little variation in tone or texture. The album was divided into three long suites, taking immediate aim at our reigning global oligarchy in the 17-minute mini-epic "El Dorado", rising to a climax of genuine strength and emotion in what has to be the highlight of the entire project.

The transitional anthem "Living in FEAR" is equally passionate. "What a waste of time", sings frontman Steve Hogarth, compiling a list of follies in a long history of misguided nationalism: the Great Wall of China; the Maginot Line; the Berlin Wall. It's too bad he didn't think to include the virtual wall of Ronald Reagan's SDI pipe dream. Or the Mexican border wall proposed by the newly inaugurated ersatz American president. Or even "The Wall" itself, erected and maintained by the band's role model Roger Waters: a real waste of time, for discriminating Progheads.

And then there's the odd subplot celebrating the transient lifestyle of the modern rock musician ("The Leavers"): the closest thing we have to a romantic gypsy subculture in a homogenized society and, according to Marillion, the best alternative to the grinding erosion of idealism around the world. It may be a wrongheaded misreading on my part, but I detect a whiff of elitism at odds with Progressive Rock's more egalitarian impulses: a sense that we schmucks can only hope to bask in their reflected glory during a concert event before regressing back to our humdrum lives.

The album never quite recovers from that misstep, and plods along under the burden of its convictions for another 45-minutes toward an unresolved ending, literally on a note of music hanging unfinished in mid-air, as if begging for a sequel. If true, let's hope the band rediscovers the collective fire that continues to motivate their better efforts. Or, failing that, at least remembers the immortal words falsely attributed to movie mogul Sam Goldwyn: "If you want to send a message, call Western Union."

Easy Livin hits the nail by saying "Whether or not the film adds anything to the music is questionable". Opposite to him, I do appreciate the album quite a lot. At least I used to. Frankly I haven't listened to it that much in the last ten years. With this background, I lit several candles and prepared to return to my old favourite with the additional visual level. So wrong, so wrong. Instead I should have listened to the CD and let my inner visions pass by in the candle-lit room. (The story itself isn't that complicated that anyone couldn't form his/her own images.) First, I was painfully aware how this film is inferior sonically, compared to the original album. Second, the artistic level of the visual story-telling was pretty poor.

The DVD's back cover says "Brave - The Movie is a fifty-minute concept film directed by cult movie director Richard Stanley. It is Stanley's stark vision of a young life in the 90's inspired by Marillion's album of the same name, which centres around a teenage girl who is found wandering in a state of amnesia on the Severn Bridge, and her consequent search for her past." With such bold words, it's strange that not even the extras lay any light on Stanley. (His filmography includes music videos and horror films, nothing very well-known, I guess.) Seemingly he was just as uninspired as the band in making the film. The main chatracter is fairly well played by Josie Ayers, and it's really her dedicated presence that brings any life to the film.

The clumsy cut-and-paste sections that feature Marillion are luckily brief. At times the black & white cinematography looks good with all the symbolic elements (e.g. 'Hollow Man'), but most of the time the semi-coloured film looks rather dated and over- depressing. Here and there we hear the calm voice of the doctor who encourages the girl to remember what has happened. Even that totally unnecessary feature makes the film inferior to the album. Actually it was more interesting to see the band members chatting -- and in the end, jamming together -- in the 30-minute "Making of" documentary which isn't very suitable for repeated viewings either.

My relationship with Marillion has been an idle one for quite a few years now. I'm a big fan of the classic Fish era material and do enjoy the early Hogharth era releases up until Afraid Of Sunlight, yes that includes the somewhat controversial Holidays In Eden. After 1995 the band continued their cycle of album releases which to me sounded pretty bland and unfocused. The band did manage to get praise for the 2004 release Marbles but I'm still not entirely sure why it's such a popular release. Maybe it has to do with the band finally getting their first cohesive release in years? After two more releases Marillion finally hit rock bottom with the release of Less Is More, a studio album which consisted of new acoustic arrangements of some previously released tracks. To me it sounded like the band was no longer even trying to make any new creative choices and instead were just pandering to their existing fanbase.

Then something happened with the release of Sounds That Can't Be Made, which partly could be attributed to Steve Hogharth's strong lyrics that moved away from his otherwise very personal reflections and became more concerned with the world of today. I remember hearing Power for the first time at a concert and taken by the delivery and message of the new material. After listening to the entire Sounds That Can't Be Made I was definitely impressed by many of the compositions but there were still a few lesser tracks that dragged the overall experience for me.

Four years passed and a new Marillion album was beginning to make headlines. At first I was only barely enthusiastic about the news, writing off Sounds That Can't Be Made as a minor spark in the band's catalog and assuming that they'll get back to business as usual on F E A R... how wrong it was of me to assume this! After hearing the EP The New Kings, which predated the release by a few month, my mind definitely began to change since what I was hearing on this four part suite was a more aggressive and revitalized band. Musically the material is fueled by genius keyboard arrangements by Mark Kelly, which don't distract from the overall flow of the music while creating just enough groove for the other band members to contribute to. Steve Rothery performs some of his most memorable guitar work in years, which could be attributed to the new energy that he's received by working on his solo work with the Steve Rothery band. Ultimately it's Steve Hogharth's lyrics and vocal performance that completes the material and makes it some of the most memorable work from Marillion in decades!

The album consists of merely six compositions, three of which take up more than 75 % of the album time and thus are the backbone of this marvelous album. Of the three I probably enjoy El Dorado and The New Kings the most but The Leavers is not far behind the other two. These three compositions have an overall theme that reflects upon the current state of affairs in the world and taps in the dark side of the politics and world economy. The three remaining shorter songs are by no means lesser than the rest and manage to complete the transitions between the multi suite tracks. Living In F E A R is probably my least favorite composition on the album but it's mostly due to it's last 2 minutes which, in my opinion, could have been omitted from the track. White Paper is my favorite of the "shorter" tracks due to it's sleek progression, which almost makes it a multi suite in a mini format, and the strong melodic hooks in the vocal delivery. Tomorrow's New Country finishes off the album with an epilogue and makes me wonder whether this is the new direction that Marillion is planning to expand on in the future? I guess only time will tell.

To me F E A R is the best Marillion album since the 1987 release of Clutching At Straws but the journey here was long and quite a bumpy one. Please give this album at least three spins before making your judgment. For me it took more than 10 repeated listens for the tracks to settle into what I now consider an excellent release from one of the under-appreciated band's of modern progressive rock.

***** star songs: F E A R (4:07) The Grandchildren Of Apes (2:35) Vapour Trails In The Sky (4:49) White Paper (7:18) Fuck Everyone And Run (4:22) Russia's Locked Doors (6:24) Why Is Nothing Ever True? (3:24)

**** star songs: Long-Shadowed Sun (1:26) The Gold (6:13) Demolished Lives (2:23) Living In F E A R (6:25) Wake Up In Music (4:27) The Remainers (1:34) The Jumble Of Days (4:20) One Tonight (3:56) A Scary Sky (2:33) Tomorrow's New Country (1:47)

For fans or people who want to hear rants against the current, albeit real, course of humankind.

P.S. Don't even get me started on "Gaza" or "Montreal" (Lyrics wise of course).