BAśNIE

There's a legion of neo-prog bands out there who take their lead from Marillion's sound during the Fish era, but for me Collage stand out as a particularly excellent one. Their debut, Basnie, is a case in point: whilst many other bands simply try to preserve Marillion's sound from whichever Fish-era album happens to be their favourite and don't really take the music forward, Collage learn lessons from all the phases of the Fish period - the angst of Script for a Jester's Tear, the anger of Fugazi, the delicacy of Misplaced Childhood and the wry wit of Clutching at Straws - and combine all of these moods (and the musical underpinnings thereof) to form the core of their sound and take it in an entirely different direction from the one Marillion seemed to be pursuing at the end of the Fish era: more raw, more energetic, and significantly more complex.

Their compositions are simply stuffed with energetic solos and performances from the band's instrumentalists, whilst frontman Tomas Rozycki's passionate and confident singing style is genuinely individual and could give most other singers from major neo-prog bands a run for their money. A brilliant debut to a career which after this was, unfortunately, rather patchy and inconsistent. Still, there was at least one more widely-embraced landmark to come.