SONGS FROM THE MIRROR

Songs From The Mirror was Fish´s third solo album and it seems to be released as such to fulfill his contract with Polydor. That may explains why he did an entire CD of covers so early in his solo career and not a so good one. The title is a reference to the songs he used to sing in front of the mirror as a youth, dreaming on becoming a rock star. However, the selection is hardly prog at all and also does not exactly fit his voice.

The tracklist is quite varied (covers of Bowie, T-Rex. Moody Blues, the Kinks and others, but he did not exactly chose the best from those either), the band is of course full of good musicians, and Fish, well, he is one of prog´s best singers to appear on the scene since the early 80´s. But Fish´s talent lays much on his poetry and the way he sings his own stuff. As a covers singer he would stand very little chance: he lacks the vocal technique and training to really bring up something new to this repertoire. Besides, the whole record seems to be rush recorded and released. It is very short and the best version (The Who´s The Seeker) is a bonus track. That tells it all, doesn´t it? Even his interpretation of Genesis I Know What I Like sounds forced and unnatural. It looked like he did it just satisfy people´s curiosity (after all those comparisons with Peter Gabriel when he was in Marillion)

As much as I love this guy and his work (with Marillion, solo and with others), this is one of the very few true disappointments I found in his discography. Sad to say, it is also the only of his CDs I ever got rid of. He may had his reasons to do it as he did. Still, it´s too far removed from the quality stuff he recorded thus far to justify even a three star rating. This is for hardcore fans, collectors and completionists (which I´m not). Two stars.