MARILLION.COM

Marillion.com comes across, to me at least, a bit like "Radiation done right". Not too much, mind - the band seem to be a bit less keen to mimic Radiohead this time around and a bit happier to call back to the progressive pop of Holidays In Eden. Still, there's some parallels in the approach taken to the two albums, enough to see it as a companion piece.

Not that I'm 100% against Radiation - Cathedral Wall and A Few Words For the Dead from it are pretty good tracks even in the original mix, and the 2013 rerelease with the new mix is a substantial improvement on the original - but that original mix was a bit of a misstep. Here, the band take more or less the same approach to the compositions and the sequencing of the album, frontloading it with more poppy material before rounding things off with two more experimental tracks (which may not seem much, but they amount to about 25 minutes - nearly half the running time of the album - between them).

The difference is that the album has a better production job on it and a better mix than the original release of Radiation - thanks, in part, to Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree, who contributes mixes to five of the nine songs - and the songwriting is just plain better. The shorter songs on the album might be poppy, but mainstream they ain't - we're talking melodic psychedelic indie-rock workouts which are far more appealing and interesting than the earlier stabs at the style on Radiation. The happy and upbeat numbers are bursting with an infectious energy, the downtempo numbers are wonderfully atmospheric, and all of them have more progressive touches than the more simplistic numbers on Radiation.

Meanwhile, the album presents not one but two epics which really push the bounds of Marillion's work. Interior Lulu, a bit of a missing link between Brave and Marbles, sounds like a bona fide classic. House is a laid back mood piece influenced to an equal extent by jazz and by house music. Between them, the two tracks show Marillion simultaneously demonstrating their continued mastery of their more progressive side whilst at the same time taking them further out of their comfort zone than ever before.

On the whole, I'd say marillion.com is even more sorely underrated than Radiation, especially since in Interior Lulu, the band present one of the best and most genuinely progressive songs they have ever produced. Perhaps it's best to think of it not as a followup to, say, Brave or Afraid of Sunlight or This Strange Engine, but to Holidays In Eden, bringing a more mature take to that album's prog-pop mashup.