Album title: Sounds that can't be made
Artiste: Marillion
Nationality: British
Year: 2012
Subgenre: Neo-Prog
Player(s): Steve Hogarth (Vocals), Mark kelly (Keyboards), Steve Rothery (Guitars), Pete Trewavas (Bass), Ian Mosley (Drums)
Familiarity: I am a huge Marillion fan: second-favourite band of all time; have been into them since their debut.
Favourite track(s): “The sky above the rain”
Why? Though I love “Gaza” it is hard going, and I feel Marillion say more in this final ten minutes than they did in the opening seventeen in many ways. It's a fine closer, and I think this album needed to end well, as it does. Mind you, “Lucky man” comes close too.
Least favourite track(s): None, but if I had to pick one that was weaker than the rest I'd probably go for “Invisible ink”.
Why? Just feel it's a little --- a very little --- substandard, given the overall quality of the tracks here.
Any preconceptions prior to listening, whether good or bad? Up until “Somewhere else” I was fanatically certain that any Marillion album would be nothing short of terrific, but that album hurt me and it's been something of a slow climb back since. “Marbles” and the excellent “Happiness is the road” helped heal the hurt, but I still maintain that horrible little niggling fear that they may slip again, so the certainty with the release of each album is slightly less these days. Still, I expected a great album and this is what we got.
Factoids you'd like to share? Marillion don't usually do much in the way of political lyrics since Fish departed in 1988, only “Berlin” and “Easter” off “Seasons end” come to mind really, but here they've not only written their first and most hard-hitting politically motivated song in years, but their longest too, clocking in at an amazing 17:31!
End impression: Marillion are back baby!
Comments: I'd been waiting for the release of this album for about a year, watching the Marillion website and reading up on it. When it finally came I approached it with more than a little trepidation; apart from the fears expressed above, an album that OPENS with a seventeen-minute track had better be damn good, or you're going to lose your listeners before they have time to check out the rest. And there's also a 14-minuter and a 10-minuter here too, so not for the faint-hearted! Luckily it all came together well and I consider it one of the finest recent Marillion albums I've heard.
Again, I've written a full review of this in my journal so I'll be brief here, just to say that the Arabian style melodies in “Gaza” are expected but work well, and it goes through a lot of different changes over the course of its massive run. Some great hard guitar from Rothery and powerful drumming from Mosley, and as ever Hogarth's pained, emotional vocal rises above and demands your attention. Marillion as ever mix in a nice selection of rock, prog rock, pop and even lounge with the odd bit of jazz into this album, so whether it's truly a prog rock album or not I'd maybe have to defend, but if that isn't being progressive in the truest sense of the word I don't know what is.
My only criticism, if I have one, is that there are too many long tracks on the album, and on those longer ones I find I get easily lost, that is, they don't flow as easily as the shorter ones and I'd be hard-pressed to remember what they go like. It's the old “Ocean cloud” (from “Marbles disc 2”) problem rearing its head again, a trap Marillion have tended to fall into over the last ten years and the last four albums. Songs like “Power”, the title track and “Lucky man” hit the spot more for me because they're (relatively) short and I can relate to them more. This is odd, yes, coming from Trollheart the Epic Lover, but it's just how these longer songs come across to me. The last really long Marillion song I enjoyed was probably “Neverland”, the closing track on “Marbles” and “Interior lulu” and “House”, the final tracks on “Marillion dot com”...
I really feel that if Marillion stuck to more sub-ten-minute tracks they would be a lot more popular than they are at the moment. Much of this album is squarely aimed at longtime fans like me, and even I have a little problem with the “epics”. And yet I love “The sky above the rain”, and that's over ten minutes long. Thing is, I used to be able to sing (if you wanted to be tortured!) every word and hum every musical phrase from every Marillion album, going back to "Script" and up to about "Marillion dot com", but after that I started to --- not forget as such but maybe not be quite as impressed by some of the tracks, and the later albums I could sing some of the tracks, often close to all but not every single one. In itself I think this says something of a guy who is a total Marillion nut, and what therefore would it say of a casual listener or fan? Too clever for their own good? I do begin to wonder....
Rating: 4.0 (I'd like to score it higher, and I do love it, but I don't feel it deserves the title of classic and certainly not masterpiece sadly. But a great, great album nevertheless)