THIS STRANGE ENGINE

By this time along the road of Marillion's studio discography I was growing more than a little disappointed with the band. Their music seemed to be changing lanes drastically into light, if pleasant, pop / rock territory with the last release. I was hoping that this album would change that and put the band back on track to what I thought I should be hearing from them.

"Man of a Thousand Faces" - Starts off in a very light vein with voice and acoustic guitar before heading to anthemic "sing along" folk rock. A pleasant 7 mins and thirty one seconds but not magical. Mosley purely takes the band through the motions regarding the drums. No stunning Rothery lead breaks here.

"One Fine Day" - Starts of in very light bluesy, smokey fashion. I like this but again it's not magical - it's miles away from the Marillion that I loved up until and including "Seasons End".

"80 days" - Voice and acoustic guitar start again. Light hearted country / rock / pop thing that I could imagine "America" or "Poco" doing. Pleasant enough.

"Estonia" - Starts off very softly - back into smokey territory. At this stage in the album the band is starting to sound very formulaic to me and its hard not to simply skip ahead to the next track.

"Memory of Water" - Nice, mournful, almost vocal only start until the cello comes in. I like Hogarth on this one.

"An accidental Man" - I like the start of this one. It is an ok, pleasant track but again nothing special by any stretch of the imagination. About two thirds of the way in it incorporates some nice organ keyboard work. Goes on way too long though.

"Hope for the Future" - Light bluesy track before going into a kind of "Lou Reed" bass rythm kind of thing and then seguing into calypso carribean territory. It is interesting but I can't say that I love it.

"This Strange Engine" - Starts off with that light smokey atmosphere before seguing into the hardest rock of the album accompanied by some nice keyboard work. A third of the way in it slows again (I'm drawn in at this stage). Some nice Sax halfway in with some soaring Rothery lead work. From then onward the track kind of loses way and goes on too long with some typical Hogarth emotive hollering.

I will not be spooling this album up again in a hurry. It is pleasant for the most part but there is nothing in it of any importance whatsoever. There is a hidden track which features laughing and piano if you wait awhile after "This Strange Engine" has finished. I can't help wondering what the laughter is about - perhaps the betrayal that this album is? I'm not impressed at all and I remember thinking to myself that I was done with the band for good. A 2 star rating from me.