SCRIPT FOR A JESTER'S TEAR

Unlike most, I think the 80s weren't all too bad on prog. I mean, King Crimson reunited with a cool new yet still proggy sound, Kate Bush released a plethora of great prog pop albums, Rush was still going mighty strong, and avant-prog bands like Cardiacs and Univers Zero got quite popular in the threshold. It was also the decade when we got introduced to neo-prog, which then was a synth driven progressive rock movement that combined elements of new wave, punk, and prog pop into prog rock, creating this fun and inventive ideal for bands to take. Obviously, it goes without saying the genre's start can be pointed to Marillion's Script For A Jester's Tear.

Released in the same year as Metallica's debut album, Iron Maiden's Piece of Mind, and Talking Heads' Remain In Light, I feel like Script For A Jester's Tear is quite the album for the 80s, and one that with time, I fell in love with.

This was created in the wake of many life changing melodies the then frontman, Dereck Dick, or Fish, held within his life. Break up, drug abuse, and his encounters with the rich and war, all can be found within the album's longevity of music and what he had experienced within his life. Whilst these more personal, and more outwardly touchy subjects aren't new for prog rock, hell bands like Pink Floyd and King Crimson had talked about them for quite some time, I feel like what Fish crafts here is truly his own, and in retrospect, paints a beautiful, yet very depressing picture. I think it really makes Script For A Jester's Tear a very special album in my eyes, as I feel like it takes the best elements of more punk ideals and merges them with the fun exploration of progressive rock. To me, this feels like if Genesis or any symphonic prog band decided to make their own interpretation of Animals by Pink Floyd.

Musically speaking, this album is quite some of the best prog rock you can get. Many passages on here have this overwhelming charm to it. While on first listens the Genesis inspiration is quite apparent, I feel like that inspiration goes away pretty quickly and merges within this more unique quality the band takes on. Tracks like the title track, The Web, Garden Party, and Forgotten Sons does such a charming job in my opinion within the entire beauty it all holds, and while you can definitely hear some form of inspiration within the sounds and qualities to bands from the 70s, I do not think it makes the sound any less than so, and in fact I feel like it is truly progressive, using the sounds and stylizations of bands from the past and coating them in a new coat of paint and adding a new edge to the whole is a great showcasing of progressive rock and why I really love it. I mean, it is pretty telling of this fact with the album cover. The back depicts albums from the past, on the floor, relatively hidden away in the darkness; the past is still there, but the future, the jester, is now. I think this musicality represents the entire scope of prog rock, as it looks and reflects on the past, like how Fish does within the lyrics, but it is shrouded and foggy in the wake of new things. The more I think about it, the more ingenious this whole album becomes as a metaphor for not only Fish's life, but for prog rock as a whole.

It is without saying, or denying that this album is a masterpiece. Every track on here is a masterclass of prog rock standards, and while it isn't my favorite Marillion album, nor my favorite Fish era album (that title goes to Misplaced Childhood), Script For A Jester's Tear is still a boundless and quite an amazing record, taking what was and turning it into something new. It is no better time than now to see and hear this album as it is one of those prog rock classics that I feel needs more recognition. This is an ingenious, beautiful, edgy, and quite charming record if I do say so myself.

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