SCRIPT FOR A JESTER'S TEAR

When i joined this site, i promised myself to never start reviewing or grading albums, as i didn't want to be distracted while listening to my favourite albums with thoughts of "is this a five or a four star album?" Why then did i decide to write a review of this particular album? Simply because this is an album about which i will never need to have such thoughts. This is, without a doubt, an album deserving the full five stars for so many reasons. That hasn't always been the case though, as when i first had gotten Script, i thought of it as nothing more than 3 stars. I bought it only because it was cheap and it was the most highly rated Neo album, a genre of which i had heard virtually nothing. When i first got it, i listened to it and decided that it was too metallic, musically unengaging, and that it just wasn't suited for much more than background noise to tap your foot to while reading your homework. So that was excactly what i did. This was my homework music, and i listened to it pretty casually for a long time, thinking it didn't have the depth of the other music i was into at the time (Yes, Genesis, and Pink Floyd). Suddenly i realised that it had become my most listened to album of the whole bunch and, seeing as i still hadn't tired of it, i began listening more intently than before, and it started to grow immensely, to the point where i dinally decided that this was one of my favourite albums of all time.

There is nothing in Marillion's music which is even remotely avant-garde, and no virtuosic playing anywhere. Nothing which will make you go "Wow! that is truly original". It will, however, if you open yourself up and listen without preconceptions about it being too derivative, make you feel, because Marillion is all about emotion. The biggest part of this comes of course from Fish. I've always liked Fish's lyrics as they seem very personal and honest, and he always writes about subjects that actually mean something while at the same time being straight-forward enough (as opposed to the lyrics of Close to the Edge or Thick as a Brick, where the listener almost has to choose between listening to the music or deciphering the lyrics). Fish's singing is also very good, of course, and really much more closely related to those of Peter Hammill, rather than those of Peter Gabriel.

Then there's the matter of Rothey's guitar, of course. Maybe not as flexible as Hackett or as clean as Gilmour, he still has a lot of feeling in his guitar work, and his solos are an essential pert of Marillion's music, always underlining the lyrics of Fish. Rothery's relatively slow playing is perfectly complimented by Mark Kelly's much faster keyboard solos.

People are always complaining about the abilities of drummer Mick "one fill" Pointer but actually... well, actually they're right, so don't expect a lot of virtuosity (from any member, really) or drum solos á la ELP here, folks.

On all honesty, i could see myself giving this 4 stars as there is nothing really revolutionary here, and the musicianship is far from impeccable, but if i would do that, i would deny what it is that music means to me; feeling. And that is exactly what Marillion is all about.