AFRAID OF SUNLIGHT

For me, "Afraid of sunlight" is probably the best of the post Fish Marillion releases.

All the tracks here are melodic, well written, and beautifully produced. The sound is much softer than that of the Fish era, and of the early Hogarth era albums. The title track is the best of the lot being a soft verse/loud chorus song with an awesome keyboards section, including bass notes to shiver your timbers . The song finds the band back on their ecological bandwagon, along the lines of "Season's end", with which the track has a fair bit in common.

"Cannibal surf babe" is a Beach Boys inspired (almost) pop song, which endeavours to show that Marillion do in fact have a sense of humour. It's certainly a well constructed parody, complete with subtle vocal harmonies. "Beautiful" is descriptive both of itself and of the following "Afraid of sunrise". The latter is a fragile piece with a similar theme and structure to the title track, for which it is virtually a guide vocal.

Two of the tracks are about people who died before they should have. "Out of this world" pays tribute to Donald Campbell who died attempting to beat the world water speed record, while "King" is (obviously) about Elvis. Both are sympathetically written, and musically superb, with Hogarth in particular contributing heartfelt vocals.

An inspired album which deserved a far greater audience than it ultimately gained.

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