1991 was an interesting time in Marillionland, and for those who had taken a side in the Fish/Marillion war, a difficult one, as both released their second album. Technically, of course, "Holidays in Eden" was Marillion's sixth album overall, but it was their second with new vocalist Steve Hogarth, while Fish put out his own followup to "Vigil in a wilderness of mirrors", his album hitting the shelves in October while his ex-band got theirs out four months earlier, and so the Marillion album is the one I'm going to look at first.
With Hogarth still really settling in at this point and the ghost of the departed Fish still howling around the corridors, cursing in Gaelic and singing drunken snatches of songs he had written before leaving the band, Marillion were still in a situation where they were looking for new material and trying not to use old Fish music, he having taken all lyrics with him. They turned to Hogarth, who provided them with the title track to the only album his own band --- well, spinoff from his main band --- released, which was called "Dry land", and also the melody to another song off that album, which became "Cover my eyes (Pain and Heaven)".
The album therefore features mostly shorter, more commercial and even poppy songs, which helped it to scale its way into the top ten, the last time the band would populate the upper echelons of the charts. They would never make any impact in the USA chartswise; after a brief heady rise into the top fifty for "Misplaced childhood", the album from which their biggest ever single successes came, "Clutching at straws" would barely make it into the top one hundred and after that no Marillion album would chart in the US. Over here, their relationship with the charts would be shaky at best, the next two albums scraping into the top twenty but after that they would rarely if ever trouble the charts again.
Nevertheless, their sound was changing. We had heard its beginnings on "Seasons end", though in fairness on that album the ghost of Fish was moaning loudly and still cast a very long shadow
(what do you mean: ghosts can't cast shadows? Allow me some artistic licence, why don't ya?) and so it sounded in essence quite like the previous album, even some of the melodies similar, as well as the themes. But this was a new Marillion and they intended not to rest on the glories of the past but fashion a whole new mythology with their new vocalist, frontman and composer. And so they did.
Holidays in Eden, 1991 Produced by Christopher Neil, on the EMI label (IRS in the USA)
There are some echoes of the old Marillion to a degree, but you have to look for them and they're quite scarce. The album, like the last two, starts on a slow, fading-in introduction, and though there are no epics on it, the closing three tracks more or less make up a loose suite which runs for almost thirteen minutes, paradoxically making it (if you take the three songs together) the longest composition on a Marillion studio album up to that point, and one which would not be surpassed until 1997's "This strange engine".
Beyond that though, there's not too much progressive rock about this. There are three ballads on the album --- the most of any Marillion album up to then --- three singles released from it and almost half of the tracks on the album are less than five minutes long, a practice that had begun with "Seasons end" and would continue through subsequent albums. In fact, leaving aside the opener and maybe one other, someone coming new to Marillion and picking up this album would be hard-pressed to recognise it as progressive rock. They certainly wouldn't compare it to the earlier Fish-era albums.
1. Splintering heart (6:54) --- Opening on a quiet but rising synth and guitar line, the vocal comes in at about the fortieth second but it's very quiet and downbeat as the song builds with a soft keyboard riff being laid down by Mark Kelly. It's not until almost the second minute that we even hear a drumbeat, and then in the third minute Rothery kicks in with guitar and Mosley takes the percussion full tilt, but even then it cuts back and running on a guitar section we last heard in "The web", it slows down again and doesn't really pick up again at all, tempowise. There's a lovely laidback guitar solo which then breaks out into a powerful emotional soaraway as Kelly's keys join in, organ-like, to take the song towards its conclusion. Hogarth's voice comes back powerfully after this and then everything drops back to reprise the opening as it fades away to end.
2. Cover my eyes (Pain and Heaven) (3:54) --- With the first song to really move away from the true progressive rock direction Marillion had been heading in since 1981, this is a true rock song. There's an uptempo guitar, strong keyboards and a song about, well, basically falling in love, like most of the songs on this album would be. In fact, if there is a theme running through this it's not social injustice or wars or politics or even childhood revisited, it's simply love. Love seen through the eyes of youth, the eyes of age, the eyes of experience and the eyes of innocence. But generally, that's it: it's a love album.
This song, like many others on the album, you could hear playing on radio while dyed-in-the-wool, hardened Marillion fanatics, weaned on "Script for a jester's tear" and "Fugazi" who thought that "Kayleigh" was taking things a step too far shake their heads and mutter into their pints. It's a breezy, upbeat song and it shows the change Marillion were going through, the metamorphosis into something far different than the market square heroes we had come to know and love them as.
3. The party (5:36) --- Mostly downtempo, downbeat and very laidback, it's not surprisingly the story of a party, the first "proper" party the girl in the song goes to. And perhaps it could be taken as a warning about giving in to peer pressure, but perhaps not. Perhaps it's just a song about a party. But it's also a coming-of-age song, a tale of losing your virginity and finding out what the world really is like. When Hogarth sings "Some of the people that she thought she knew were never like this when she saw them at school", it's clear the girl in the story is learning some shocking and harsh lessons. It's driven mostly initially on Kelly's doleful piano, later joined by guitar as Hogarth mourns her loss of innocence. The song picks up power and intensity, as presumably the party does too, and the girl is left with a mixture of fear and anticipation: "Then it's twelve o'clock and the last bus is gone; they're gonna go crazy when they hear what she's done."
4. No one can (4:41) --- A nice little poppy ballad, and yes, one of my favourite post-Fish songs, though there are many. Best on the album? No. I'd probably go for "Splintering heart" or maybe "Dry land" or possibly "Waiting to happen". It's pleasant enough, a mid-paced tempo with a nice relaxed guitar line leading the melody and a mellifluous (look it up) vocal from Hogarth leaving you in no doubt that this would be one of the singles selected from the album. And it was.
5. Holidays in Eden (5:38) --- Sort of the first really uptempo song on the album, starting off with the sound of a jet airliner taking off, kicking into a fast rhythm on guitar, very rocky as opposed to poppy, but not proggy. A chance for Hogarth to exercise the strength of his vocal chords, and in fairness Kelly's keyboard lines are almost Fish-era, though more reminscent of "Incommunicado" or "Just for the record" than "Forgotten sons". It's a decent enough track this, but again shows the guys heading further off the prog path they had been almost steadily abandoning since "Seasons end."
6. Dry land (4:43) --- And another ballad, as if all that jumping about and keyboard arpeggios and guitar solos was too much for them. This is the song that began life with Hogarth's ex-band-project, How We Live. It's a great, beautiful, fragile ballad with a lovely line in guitar and a stellar vocal from Hogarth, and I love it very much. It just unfortunately pushes Marillion further along that road that's taking them inexorably into pop territory and acceptability by the mainstream.
7. Waiting to happen (5:01) --- One of Hogarth's premier vocal performances on the album. Yes, it's another ballad --- two in a row, guys, two in a row? --- but it has a nice almost acoustic simplicity that makes it kind of stand out among the others. Decent guitar solo too.
8. This town (3:18) --- The other fast track, driven by chunky guitar and a low organ sound, quite rocky and really it leads into the next track, making of the three closing ones something of a suite, as I said at the beginning. Good drum work from Mosley and some nice uptempo piano from Kelly.
9. The rake's progress (1:54) --- At this point, the shortest ever Marillion track, more or less a lead-in to the closer, it's carried on a mournful synth line and some downbeat guitar and bass, a forlorn vocal from Hogarth and a melody that then starts to pick up slowly on the back of thick bass from Trewavas and chimy guitar from Rothery. A rolling drumbeat reminiscent of the opening to "Assassing" takes it towards its fade into the next, and final track.
10. 100 nights (6:41) --- The story of a lothario who grins to the unseen husbands and boyfriends "You didn't notice me as I passed you on the stairs. How could you ever guess?"It has a nice proggy keyboard line and a solid beat from Mosley, it's slow but somewhat threatening in its way as the singer smirks "They seem attracted to my indifference; the irony just knocks me out." Superb guitar solo from Rothery that almost takes the song to its conclusion as the lothario exults "While you're out there playing you see, there's something you should know: she spends your money on me!"
With a nice little reprise from "The rake's progress" and a repeated line from "This town" we're out of here.
This is not by any means a pop album, nor even just a standard rock one. The Marillion sound is there, and always would be, but there are definite overtures towards a more commercial, radio-friendly direction and much shorter songs with subjects not generally explored by the band. Of course, none of this is particularly surprising: Fish was their main (only) lyricist, and with his departure it was always likely that the new guy coming in, with the band, would put his own stamp on "Marillion Mark II" and try to drive the songwriting away from the more overtly political or fantasy-rooted lyrics favoured by Fish.
Interestingly, as we will see in the next post, Fish himself had moved on to more edgy and hard-hitting subject matter for his second solo album, though his music would always remain entrenched in the progressive rock with which he had made his name with Marillion. Fish was not about to take the pop route, the chart route, and would never have anything close to a hit single. Which probably suited him just fine.
Marillion, on the other hand, would confuse and delight their fans by coming back three years later with their darkest and indeed most progressive rock album ever, making "Script" seem almost cheerful by comparison. It would go on to rank second in my top Marillion albums and be in many ways a hard listen, at times almost like drowning in a dark sea. There would continue to be a fractured and fraught relationship between the band and prog rock, but "Brave" would be hugely significant in being their last full prog rock album, very similar to something they might have attempted with Fish, though it was pretty much Steve Hogarth's creation.
But before that, Fish was anxious to show the world how he had grown outside the confines of his parent band, and his second solo album certainly would do that. It's up next.