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Marillion - Marillion and the Positive Light - Tales from the Engine Room  CD (album) cover

MARILLION AND THE POSITIVE LIGHT - TALES FROM THE ENGINE ROOM

Marillion

 

Neo-Prog

2.21 | 64 ratings

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rupert
3 stars The "Remix"

Let me start this review with a loud laugh, please... LOL !

Thank you, I feel quite better now. If you haven't stopped reading you may ask yourself why on earth did I do this. The reason is not that hard to explain. I have just laughed about that album listed under "Marillion". This is not Marillion, of course. This is not progressive rock music, either. This is an album by "The Positive Light" who, in order to fulfill their dreams, were allowed to use original tracks that Marillion had recorded for "This strange Engine".

And the two men who have formed "The positive Light" were allowed to do anything they want with what they got. Their names are Marc Mitchell and Mark Daghorn and they should be listed first in the "line up" - "playing" ( programming ) all kinds of tools / sequencers / machines they were capable of. They were completely free. But because those two men were rather unknown and their Album contained a lot of what Marillion had recorded - well, you can guess, but in order to sell it in at least decent amounts it was released as "Marillion and the Positive Light", and sold as a "Remix-Album". Actually, it was The Positive Light featuring Marillion. And it was more than a remix-album, because the two men added a lot of programming and synth-stuff, or say... they added pieces of Marillion to their own backingtracks ( that were meant to reconstruct the originals ), there's far more than some overdubs having been made cause they are musicians ( Style: ambient/drums'n'bass ! ) as well and, on one track, they completely left whatever there was from "Man of a thousand Faces". I guess it was their 4th attempt, cause they've called it "Face 1004". And this one, actually, is the only track of the six I do not like.

The others... well, I was completely surprised. I'm not a fan of remixes and I don't have any knowledge about ambient music or drums'n'bass- stuff, it's a foreign world to me and when I finally decided to buy this CD ( the 6 - track in 2001 - for sure, so there must be a kind of mistake in the info above... mine has EAN-code: 5 034504 103320 / other numbers listed: Eagle Gas 0000033 EAG / Germany: EAG 085-2 ) I did not expect to like it at all. I payed the full price ( for the Eagle-release, so, again - a mistake ? No budget-price ! ), though... perhaps I should have waited a bit longer, some years ago I would have got it for 2 Euros because... well, it flopped. But on the other hand - at the time I have bought it I actually had the money and it didn't hurt me at all. I found it quite listenable, very nice, and - by its best parts - I thought "well, that's as good as ( "Estonia" ) or even better than ( "80 days", "One fine Day" ) the originals, although it's a completely other world of music !".

I can understand if you don't agree... and I'm sure that "natural progheads" have a lot of problems with this disc, but I quite like it and, in parts, i love it. I've got only one problem with it - and that's far too much reverb that's been spent upon the whole affair. The otherwise very good cascades of keyboard in, f.e., "One fine day", cannot be heard distinctively, the soundmix tends to wash the best moments over instead of bringing them to light. But the feel is good. And the emotional effect can be mindblowing.

I think it's unfair to put that album down, not because of Marillion - theirs is "This strange Engine" ! - but because of two men who really poured their heart out in order to give a whole new perspective onto the music that we know. I still think they did a good job. I still think that "One fine Day" has been elevated up onto another level and i wouldn't change this version for the original anymore. But let me end this review just like I've started it. Does anybody call this prog-rock and honestly believe that it's fair to review it on this site ? Who ? You ?

LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

rupert | 3/5 |

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