MARK KELLY'S MARATHON

Mark Kelly's Marathon is a band from UK formed around of course Mark Kelly, no one else then legendary keyboard player from Marillion. Kelly after some participations in bands like DeeExpus, where he done a great job on The king of number 33 who is a real solid album, he decided to really go solo this time, and this is first full side project as a leader named Mark Kelly's Marathon.

The dubute saw the light in 2020 named simply Marathon. Helping hand on this release is from Marillion mate Rothery on one piece on guitar, his nephew on bass Conal Kelly, the great drumer Henry Rogers (Final Confflict, DeeExpus, Touchstone} fame, Oliver Smith on vocals, Pete Wood on guitar and John Cordy aswell on guitar.

Well, this is a melodic neo rog with some symphonic touches here and there with nice voclas, instrumental sections are well built, secially on pieces, the longer ones like openig Amelia dedicated to the legendary Amelia Earhart flight, a nice tune all the way. The ending track named 2051 maybe is the best from here, this 15 min. piece has everything for prog lovers, intresting keyboards, nice piano shifts, nice bass/drums rhytmic avalanche, top vocals, all is here and above all some top notch guitar parts, all well construncted and performed.

All in all, this is a fairly good solo debut by this iconic keyboard player from neo prog zone, worth to be discovered, is way better then anything Marillion released in last decade, that is for sure. Intresting art wok and all package. 3.5 stars for sure.