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Marillion - Fugazi CD (album) cover

FUGAZI

Marillion

 

Neo-Prog

4.00 | 1523 ratings

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Gatot
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
5 stars This album remarks Marillion's consistency on its music direction, i.e. progressive rock. Having successfully released their debut album "Script for a Jester's Tear" this album demonstrates their maturity in musicianship as well as music composition. For me personally, this album relieved me from doubtful questions during the year I listened to Script (almost everyday I played Script at my stereo set and walkman) "Would Marillion continue the kind of Script music or they would go "abacab"? Oh no .. Lord please don't let them going poppy ...". The second question that I asked myself was even bitter "Would this group produce second album or they would die in new wave fever?". Tough question to answer really. At the time I was not even aware about internet. So, the information was only limited from regular shipment of Dutch's progressive newsletter named as "Sym Info" from our friend, Roy, in Dodrecht, Netherland. The language barriers made the case more complex as I don't understand Dutch. Well, at least I could see the band's photographs with Fish using head banner. The newsletter called it "Kopstuk Fish". I was fortunate that I got a chance to listen to the single "Assassing" (with "Cinderellla Search as B side") from my friend's LP when I was in Bandung, Indonesia, finishing my engineering study.

Let's go over track by track. The opening track "Assassing" represents the band's interpretation of Islamic music that Fish kept on playing from records lent to him by Peter Hammil (of Van der Graff Generator). The track is energetic and uplifting. Put simply, it's the track you would wanna hear to wake you up in the morning. It has a beautiful interlude with dynamic drumming and percussion mostly played by the band's new drummer Ian Mosley (ex Steve Hackett's, Curved Air).

The second track "Punch and Judy" has even more upbeat than the first track. One of my friends first knew the band from this track as he accidentally listened to the campus radio airing this track. He reckoned that this track is Genesis-alike music. Whatever. This track is wonderful, it's rocking the planet even though it consumes only 3 minutes playing time. Not a typical prog song hah? Some people define a prog music should have minimum of 8 minutes playing time. I don't really care, I love this track.

The third track "Jig saw" it's a bit of slow-rock type of music with a very nice and stunning guitar sound by Steve Rothery. "Stand straight. Look me in the eye and say goodbye .." is the piece of lyrics that people used to sing to emulate Fish.Or this piece "Yesterday starts, tomorrow tomorrow starts today ..". Listen this track with your heart, turn-off the light, play it loud and louder at guitar part. Bang! It kills you man...definitely you will love this track!

Now let's welcome my favorite's track "Emerald Lies" that tells the story about relationship. Fish used his poet kind of lyric in this track (he did also for almost all of lyrics he wrote for Marillion) representing the guy who went to party with his girlfriend. He found out that the girlfriend flirting (innocently) to other men. Observe the piece of lyric that Fish wonderfully did "I trust you trust in me to mistrust you". Wow! What an incredible lyric! This track starts with heavy drumming and keyboard sound (short but nice!) and the music goes silent when Fish starts yelling "To be the prince of possession. In the gallery of contempt"- observe the way how Fish sings, it's different. "Suffering your indiscreet discretions. As you accumulate flirtations". Oh mannn .. I bet you like this piece! At the end of Fish voice with silent music (rhythm guitar sound by Steve) then the percussion enters the scene. This is yet another nice segment of this track as the music starts going energetic. The melody flows naturally from one segment to enother and the track completes brilliantly. Once it's done I used to repeat 3 times before moving to next track.

The fifth track is "She Chameleon" that demonstrates heavy voice of Fish and stimulates us to emulate Fish with this track. It opens with organ solo sound with beautiful melody (it's Marillion trademark, I would say) followed by Fish vocals part "Sheltering her ego on the edge of ." . "She crucified my heart .". This track is very nice in its interlude (keyboard based). It talks about groupies altogether with "Punch and Judy"

The sixth track "Incubus" is about nightmare. This track made me realize another strong point of Marillion music beside its melodic composition: it has multi melody in every track and the music moves dynamically with smooth transitions from one melody to another. Brilliant! This track has very strong musical structure and different tempo but you will notice how brilliant the movement. No wonder this track became fan's favorite track for a live performance.

The last track (on disc 1) "Fugazi" starts with a touchy piano solo nicely performed by Mark Kelly and followed by tiny voice of Fish "Vodka intimate on affair .". Ghusszzzz!!! What a nice intro part! Songwriting of this track is really excellent. Listen to the part where Fish yells "Drowing in the liquid seas on a picadilly line. Rat race!" wow! Such a high-energy piece packed with dynamic drumming and bass playing that really stimulate your adrenaline. Even this part is worth to justify this track is structurally wonderful. Overall, the lyrics of this album are dark (even darker than Script) and is very personal to Fish. (That's why you would later mention that Steve Hogarth, the new vocalist that later relaces Fish, never perform any track of this album). One of review interpreted the dark side of this track:" Rat race! Everywhere are commuters, nine to fivers all in suits with "suitable ties", such as wives and kids as well as neck ties. He is their side- show as they all stare at this rebellious rock star. (More on this in a sec). ". OVERALL, I give big FIVE STAR for this album for strong and integrated songwriting, musicianship (the new drummer is much better than Script's drummer; Pete Trewavas has forgotten his reggae style of bass playing), great composition with touchy and smooth transitions, very nice melody. Sound quality is excellent. Gatot Widayanto, Indonesia.

Gatot | 5/5 |

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