The end of one era, and the birth of a new one. After too much pressure took its toll in the punishing touring schedules, and forseeing a bleak dark future ahead, for the band and for himself, Fish came to a decision. It was time to leave. Of course, it wasn't that easy. He talked about it, discussed it with the band and even asked them to dump the label and come with him into the Unknown. They declined, and so a partnership that had begun in 1982 and carried them through four albums was dissolved, and though they reconciled to a degree in a Gabriel/Genesis way they would never again officially play together, and constant rumours of a reunion have continually been scotched (sorry) by both Fish and the remaining members of Marillion.
You have to feel sorry for them. After seven years of having been compared to Genesis, they ended up mirroring that progressive rock giant's fate, with their charismatic vocalist, frontman and lyricist leaving before the first decade of their career was out, and fans left to wonder what would happen now? Fish=Gabriel had become the final, inevitable equation it had always threatened to be. But Fish was determined, as he had sung on their last album, not to be a note in the "Where are they now?" file, and had big plans of his own, of which more later.
But what for Marillion? With the departure of Fish they lost not only their leading light but also all his lyrics. Taking the decision to start his own solo career, and having been the writer for the band, it was not unexpected nor indeed selfish of the man to want to use the lyrics he had written for his own work. Many of these had been embryonic Marillion songs, due to be released on the next album. Marillion as a band had always had control and ownership of the music, but the words had always been Fish's property, and now they were gone, leaving the guys with songs without words.
But worse than that dilemma was that they now no longer had a singer. It was unlikely they would continue as an instrumental group; while the talent was certainly there, Marillion had built their reputation on a solid grounding in progressive rock lyrics, and their songs meant something. Fans might pay to hear Steve Rothery's solos or Mark Kelly's ebullient keyboard runs, but they would not listen to that forever. Also, what about the songs they already had? Surely they couldn't "instrumentalise" those? Plus, they had never even attempted a full instrumental.
No, they needed a singer. They were recognised as a band with a vocalist and this was what they had built their fanbase on. None of the four remaining members were interested: this was no "Phil Collins" moment when someone suddenly stepped up and said "Hey I'll do it!" Apart from backing vocals, none of the quartet had ever even taken one song solo during the to-date seven years of their tenure, unlike Collins, who had tried his hand for the first time on "Selling England by the pound", and so was not walking blindly into something he underestimated, nor were the fans totally unfamiliar with his singing. But nobody had heard Steve, Mark, Pete or Ian sing. Nobody knew if they
could sing. Perhaps they can't. Certainly, based on the few examples of at least Pete's singing on the Edison's Children album, I would concur with that supposition.
But whatever the reason, nobody stepped up; cometh the hour, cometh not the man, until Marillion began auditioning and rather surprisingly at the time settled on a new-wave/electronic keyboard player and occasional vocalist, who was to take Marillion into a whole new style of music and earn them new fans, while hopefully keeping the old faithful ones too. In time, Steve Hogarth would be so synoymous with Marillion that listeners of a younger age would wonder who this Fish was that the older fans talked about, something, again, like those who heard "Abacab" and "Duke" pondered who Gabriel had been. But initially for the fans it was a bumpy start, and I for one, wondered how any one --- any one --- could replace the towering powerhouse of Fish, who cast, even a year after his departure, a very long and imposing shadow.
Seasons end (1989) produced by Nick Davis on the EMI label (Capitol in USA)
To be honest, after I heard that Fish had split from the band I thought Marillion were done, so it was with wild exultation that I noticed the -- very un-Marillionlike --- album cover in my local record store and grabbed it. Mark Wilksinson, who had up to then created all the album sleeves, had departed, siding with Fish. And to be fair, it's likely that, this being seen as something of a rebirth for the band, Marillion wanted a break with the past and a totally new style of album cover. In truth, I didn't care all that much who was singing, as long as he didn't ruin the band I had loved now for seven years. I pushed play (yes, it was my first pure CD Marillion purchase) and sat back to listen, wait and hope.
1. The King of Sunset Town (8:04) --- Like "Fugazi" and "Clutching at straws", this one starts low in the mix and fades in, gaining in power and volume as it opens up. Riding on Mark Kelly's familiar keyboard arpeggios it suddenly bursts into life with a blast of guitar from Rothery before it settles down again into soft lush keys and it's minutes before we hear the new Voice of Marillion. Fish Mark II? No. There's no Scottish accent --- though Hogarth's voice is unmistakably English; thank God they didn't try to Americanise the sound that had been so quintessentially British like (go on, go on) Genesis and later Big Big Train. One thing I noticed early on about Hogarth's voice too is that it's far gentler than his predecessor. Whereas Fish always came across as slightly angry, like a strict father or slightly feared uncle, Hogarth is more the older brother type. He just seems happier, more relaxed.
Anyway, back to the song. Marillion would continue this practice of fading in the opening track slowly over the next at least four albums, and on through others with some gaps in the discography. It becomes almost like the prelude to the album in ways. With the departure of Fish you might have thought the more esoteric, obscure lyrics would have disappeared but no. Marillion have always had a certain duality about their songs; it's often hard to figure out exactly what they're singing about, or what Fish was singing about. This song is apparently about poverty, with a reference to the massacre in Tianamen Square as well. It's a good mid-paced song, with some fine guitar work from Rothery, but of course it's Hogarth we're listening to, as this is his first, perhaps only, chance, to impress. And he does.
Easter (5:58) --- Not so much a ballad but definitely a more laidback track, this references "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland, much as Fish did on the debut with "Forgotten sons", but whereas that song was a dark, gritty, almost doom-laden and fatalistic indictment of the conflict, "Easter" has a more hopeful, uplifting sound about it, both in the music and the lyric. With a soft, almost folky acoustic guitar and a gentle vocal, the song describes rural life in Ireland, the lines "Easter in the west, a time for the blind to see. Easter: surely now can all of your hearts be free?" speaks volumes about the optimism of the song in contrast to the doomsaying of "Forgotten sons". Of course, it's written at a different time, as the peace process was finally beginning to make headway in Ireland, and we would soon see a lasting peace brokered. The final section of the song throws up a challenge to the "men of violence" as Hogarth asks matter-of-factly "What will you do with the stone of your heart? Will you set things right? Will you tear them apart? Will you sleep at night with the plough and stars alight? What will you do with the wire and the gun that will set things straight, when it's said and done? Will you sleep at night? Is there so much love to hide?"
The Univited Guest (3:52) --- Not, I have to say, one of my favourite tracks on the album, this seems to concern regret and mistakes made that follow you no matter where you go, and how the past can't be changed. It's a boppy, uptempo song with militaristic drumming that reminds me of "Misplaced childhood", and gives Hogarth a chance to vent a little vitriol, though to be fair you can expect that Fish would have poured much more ice and sarcasm onto the vocal. It's still nothing like a fast song, marching along with purpose and clarity. When Hogarth sings "You can fly to the other side of the world but you know you'll only find I've reserved the seat behind you --- we can talk about old times!" it's clear he has, or is singing about, skeletons in the closet which will never be fully banished, secrets that will always be there, mistakes that can't be corrected, and that the past is immutable. We'd all like to turn the clock back, but it can't be done.
Seasons end (8:10) --- The title track does not let the album down. An aching, downbeat plea for ecological awareness driven on slow, mournful keyboard and echoey jingly guitar, it's one of Hogarth's most passionate vocal performances on the album. You can hear his fear for the future when he cries "We'll tell our children's children why we grew so tall and reached so high, left our footprints in the earth and punched a hole right through the sky. We'll tell them how we changed the world, how we tamed the seas, and seasons they will never know in England." Rothery tears off a heartfelt and moving solo as Hogarth wails "Say goodbye, say goodbye!" The song features a sort of reprise, as it ends but then fades back slowly in on chugging guitar taking with it Hogarth's fading-in voice repeating the chorus and then fading out again. Very effective. "You'll never miss it till it's gone", warns Hogarth prophetically. Sobering words, if we'd only heed them.
Holloway girl (4:30) --- Another political song, this time questioning the wisdom of locking up a woman for a bombing she had confessed to, after the conviction proved unsound due to her mental instability, and who was released eventually after serving eighteen years for a crime she did not commit. The woman in question was released in 1992, and Hogarth again prophesies, or hopes, justice will prevail when he sings "One day freedom will unlock your door, so hold on, believe on..." It's a pretty grim song with hard guitar and lush keyboard, punchy percussion and hard words from Hogarth --- "Like a needle in a haystack, the truth gets so disguised in a kingdom built on madness and on lies."
Berlin (7:48) --- And yet another prediction that came true. Not surprisingly, the song is written about the east/west divide that existed until the Berlin Wall fell in 1990. Only months after this was written history was made and the hated wall collapsed, reunited East and West Berlin. This song was originally written with different lyrics --- Fish's original --- as "Story from a thin wall" and it's weird to listen to that original song now and hear not only the music for this song but what would later become the lyric to Fish's "Family business". A real masterpiece, it encapsulates a frozen moment in time as Hogarth sings about the "spotlight dancer", which I assume is meant to refer to a would-be escapee caught in the glare of the searchlight and then shot.
For the first time that I can remember Marillion use the services of a saxaphonist here, and it certainly adds a sense of bleakness and tragedy to the song. The second half of the song, bridged by again a section almost taken right out of "Misplaced childhood", runs in a sort of buildup, getting more and more intense, more military drumming from Mosley reinforcing the idea of living in, being trapped in, a police state, with no hope of ever getting out other than a mad dash to the wall, braving the guards' machine-guns on the sentry posts. I can almost hear the ghost of Fish here, and Hogarth fills his shoes admirably, though he has not, to my mind, quite made them his own yet. Perhaps there is a tiny part of the remaining members of Marillion that miss the big Scot, given that they had worked on this song together in that city, reflected in the lines "We wake up without you, with a hole in our hearts"?
After me (3:20) --- A simple acoustic ballad, nothing more than a love song, and something Marillion have not done up to now. This shows a new side to them; there are no clever political or fantasy lyrics, no lengthy keyboard solos, no complicated imagery, and yet the pictures evoked are amazing. The dog the girl keeps, who despite loving her will not stay in with her after dark --- "He claws at the door to be let out at night; and she makes do without him, she worries about him." It kicks up a little near the end, and there's a fine solo to end from Rothery, but generally you could only call it a ballad, a love song, though given a Marillion twist.
Hooks in you (2:57) --- Shortest song on the album, and of course a single taken from it, it's their return to the style of "Incommunicado", "Kayleigh" and even "Market square heroes", with a boppy, commercial sound driven on Kelly's bubbly synth, squealing guitar from Rothery, the melody so close to "Incommunicado" that it's almost funny. If any song ever foreshadowed a change in Marillion's music direction, then this is it. I could not imagine Fish ever singing this, nor indeed the previous song. A seachange, a sharp left turn and a whole new world was opening to the old progressive rockers. It's telling that Wiki characterises this album as not only progressive rock but pop rock, as that was, to an extent, the direction Marillion were heading in.
The space... (6:14) --- But just in case you thought they were headed for Top of the Pops and Smash Hits, the album closes on an ambient, expressionist prog rock tune right out of their catalogue from the early eighties. Fading in on strings-like keyboards, almost bookending with the opener, "The space..." is one of those songs that it's hard to work out what it's about. Reflections, perhaps, on a life, on a new career, on the past, on the future? It's a powerful song, and the orchestral style keyboard keeps up through most of it, forming the backbone of the song. Oddly enough, there are three extra writers credited on it, none of whom I recognise, and I wonder if it's a song from Hogarth's old band that he rewrote or fine-tuned?
Either way it's a powerful closer and in the middle it drops back to allow Rothery his showcase before pulling back up on the back of Hogarth's solo vocal with simple synth lines from Kelly before Mosley thunders in and Rothery and Trewavas add their own punch to the explosive ending, a dramatic, yearning conclusion finishing with one single muted drumbeat.
Having heard "Seasons end" any doubts I had had about Marillion continuing on without Fish were instantly dispelled. All right, there was shorter songs and some of them were even what I'd have to call poppier than I would have expected from my second-favourite band, but they had definitely not sold out. And Steve Hogarth (who would soon be referred to only as "H") was a great successor to, if not replacement for Fish. His style was different yes, but did we really want another Fish clone? That chapter of Marillion's story was closed, no point in rewriting it. Time for a new volume. You ca hear from this album that Fish's legacy was in safe hands. The torch (almost literally, given the last album) had been passed, and new blood was flowing into the band. And Hogarth would take Marillion into hitherto uncharted waters, as their progressive roots, never denied or ignored, would nevertheless be pared back very slightly over the next few albums to allow more mainstream rock and even pop shoots to poke their heads out into the embrace of the newly-risen sun.
Seasons end? Nah: seasons change, but they always come round.
Coming up: what Fish did next.