When Fish left Marillion in 1987 I was crushed. To tell the truth, I firmly believed that the band was broken up, would be no more. Fish had, after all, been the driving force behind the band, and though he had not actually been a founder member he was the lyricist and as a frontman, one of the main reasons that they had garnered the attention they had. Fish had a way of speaking to the audience and interacting with them that few frontmen possess; a sort of theatrical idea mixed with a small amount of of self-deprecating comedy, and a determination not to speak down to or belittle the fans. The lyrics alone on the first four albums show what an incredible wordsmith he is, and while he did not play any instrument, his mere presence onstage was enough to elevate Marillion to the very highest echelons of the emerging neo-prog rock revival going on at the time.
But excessive touring and a lack of belief in EMI led Fish to decide that his fortunes lay elsewhere, and after releasing
Clutching at Straws, the prophetically-titled final Fish-era album, he bade farewell to the guys he had spent five years making music and history with, and embarked on his own solo career. This left Marillion with a choice of Genesisesque proportions. Did they advertise for a new vocalist, or did someone in the band feel competent in taking over from their tall Scottish frontman? Could anyone else write the sort of lyrics Fish had? While Genesis all mostly wrote as a team on their Gabriel-era albums, Marillion had always left the lyrics to Fish while they wrote the music. Unless they wanted to become an instrumental band - and how would the fans take
that? - they needed to fill the shoes vacated by their own “Big Yin”.
Seasons End (1989)
Although John Helmer, who would work with them through the 1990s and then vanish to add his lyrical prowess to Fish's solo albums, had written some lyrics for the emerging fifth Marillion album - and much of Fish's half-completed work would be used also - Marillion needed a new guy to express these lyrics and communicate with the audience, to show the fans that Marillion were still very much a going concern. In Steve Hogarth they struck gold. Whereas Fish had a pronounced Scottish accent (of course) Hogarth had the more genteel, relaxed cultured English accent found in people like Roger Hodgson and Roger Waters. He seemed to fit in perfectly, and when I found this album, to my intense surprise and delight, thinking that Marillion had released all they were going to, I immediately fell in love with his voice.
Unlike many fans, I do not ascribe to the “he-left-the-band-and-now-I follow-him” or the reverse; I enjoyed Gabriel's solo work as much as the later output from Genesis, and Dio's albums as much as Rainbow or Black Sabbath. I don't understand the “line in the sand” idea that when a band member, particularly a vocalist/frontman leaves a band that there has to be a choice, that you have to “support” one or the other. Why not both? Makes sense to me. Anyway I had absolutely no problem buying both Marillion - new Marillion - records as well as Fish solo material, and I enjoyed both. But initially this was something new for me, as it was for everyone, and I wondered what I would make of it. How would Marillion sound without Fish?
Answer: pretty much the same, as in any case Mark Kelly, Steve Rothery, Pete Trewavas and Ian Mosley still created all the music, so that was never going to change too much. However we would see something of a swing away from much of the darker themes that had encompassed the band's first four albums, and less of the more epic, longer song suites that had characterised the likes of
Misplaced Childhood and, to an extent,
Clutching at Straws. There would also be shorter, snappier, almost poppier songs as the band found their feet with their new identity and began to perhaps pull away from the overly controlling aspect of Fish's lyrics.
We begin, however, with a familiar sound as Mark Kelly's sparkling keyboards slowly - very slowly - rise from the silence, attended by Pete's dark basslines taking us into “The King of Sunset Town”, Steve Rothery's crying guitar swelling in tandem with Kelly's keys before the whole thing bursts out on a big attack from Rothery, Mosley battering his kit as if really happy to be back, which brings us almost two and a half minutes into the song before we first hear the clear, dulcet tones of the new boy. It's clear from the outset that Hogarth is not going to be a Fish replacement; he's his own man and he is about to give Marillion a whole new sound, a sound that will eclipse the Fish years while never forgetting or discounting them. With typically abstruse lyric, the song is about poverty and also pulls in the massacre in Tianamen Square as Hogarth sighs
”Everyone assembled here/ Remembers how it used to be/ Before the twenty-seventh came/ This place will never be the same.” I used to think the 27th referred to was a date, but Wiki tells me it's the Chinese 27th Army that Hogarth is namechecking, they who rumbled their tanks into that infamous square on that fateful, dark day.
Kelly's doleful piano follows the vocal almost in sympathy, with little twinkling synth flourishes, before the whole thing ends on a big flurry of instruments, powering out and fading as it began, into the distance, and I'm already impressed and if I'm honest, a little relieved. This was a big ask for Marillion, and initially at least, they've risen to the task. “Easter” is up next, and it's a beautiful, aching ballad which shows for the first time Hogarth's songwriting skill, as he speaks of the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland, something which immediately earns him points in my book. With a soft little acoustic guitar line from Rothery, the song is a mid-paced, almost folky tune, and treats the situation in Northern Ireland far more sympathetically (for an Englishman) than Fish did on “Forgotten Sons”. There's no vitriol here, no soldiers dying in the street, no “children mourning your death in a terrorist's smile”, just a fervent wish for peace and harmony. Sides are not taken, recriminations are not thrown, accusations do not fly: it's a perfectly balanced lyric and probably one of the least contentious and therefore most effective songs about the North that I've ever heard. I would imagine it was tough to play “Forgotten Sons” on stage in Belfast, whereas here, this song would be, and is, welcomed by even the staunchest Nationalist in the Falls Road as it would be on the streets of London.
A superb, evocative guitar solo from Rothery injects further heart into the song before Hogarth asks, plainly and without artifice
”What will you do/ With the wire and the gun/ Will you set things right/ When it's said and done?” After that powerful statement, the more rocky, somewhat tongue-in-cheek “The Uninvited Guest”, beginning as it does on a marching, military drumbeat comes both as something of a relief and a disappointment, but it's nice to see some humour being injected into the often too serious Marillion lyrics.
”You can fly to the other side of the world” warns Hogarth, grinning,
”You know you'll only find/ I've reserved the seat behind you/ We can talk about old times!” I honestly don't know what the song is supposed to be about, but it's a good example of a hard-rocking song which still retains the progressive rock sensibilities Marillion have, at this point, become known for.
The title track, also the longest, just beating the opener by a few seconds, comes in, like “The King of Sunset Town”, on a low, murmuring synth from Kelly with an emotional guitar intro from Rothery as Hogarth worries about global warming, this being perhaps the first Marillion song to focus on the damage we're causing to the environment of the planet we live on. He moans
”We'll tell our children's children/ Why we grew so tall and reached so high/ We left our footprints in the earth/ And punched a hole right through the sky.” There's a terrible sense of loss and shame in the song, a passionate plea for something to be done before it's too late. Another emotional guitar solo from Rothery, perhaps his best work on the album, with particularly dark synth backing from Kelly, before the song winds down to a false ending, coming back in very slowly and gradually on a shuddering guitar line from Steve, pulsing bass from Pete and tinkly piano from Mark, leading up to a final crying vocal, distant, echoing and forlorn, the whole thing drifting away then and fading out.
And that's only half the album! Political lyrics were never anything Fish shrank from, and here we get another one as Hogarth deplores the imprisonment of women in “Holloway Girl” and wonders about miscarriages of justice when he sings
”Like a needle in a haystack/ The truth gets so disguised/ In a kingdom built on madness and on lies.” There's a nice jaunty jangly guitar line opening the song and then it runs on a solid keyboard basis, but it's not really one of my favourite songs on the album. Not that it's bad; nothing on this album is, but it's probably my least favourite. A very Marillion sound about it, that's for certain, and Hogarth gets to express his vocal passion very well. Much better is yet another standout, as “Berlin” takes the idea for what would later become Fish's “Family Business” and was initially called “Voice from a Thin Wall”. Written only weeks before the Wall would fall, it paints a stark picture of life for those in what was at that time Eastern Germany and the efforts of their government to keep them there by any means necessary. When Hogarth sings about the “spotlight dancer”, we all know what he's saying. There's a slow, almost muted beginning as he describes the opening of the day for a local prostitute as she
”Rises at twilight/ Gets dressed in a daze”, the song mostly led by a soft acoustic guitar line from Rothery, attended by - I think for the first time ever - sax from Phil Todd, but it builds to a powerful climax. I also like the double-meaning of
”Dancing in the spotlight/ To the sound of clapping hands”, which can refer to the girl dancing at the strip bar as well as the guy being shot on the wall when he's trapped in the searchlight as he tries to make it out of the city.
In the midway point, it all tails back for a low-key run that slowly gets more intense on mostly the military drumming from Ian Mosley, building alongside Hogarth's muttering then slowly more anguished voice, followed by Rothery and Kelly as Trewavas thumps the bass and the whole thing explodes into the main end section with a very Fish-like lyric leading into a superb solo by Rothery before the song fades out and then, “Seasons End”-like, comes back on a muted keyboard line and a final vocal from Hogarth. Mesmerising. Another first then for Marillion, “After me” is the only time up to this that I've heard them write a ballad that wasn't full of bitterness and recrimination. Yes, there was “Jigsaw”, “She Chameleon” to an extent, “Lavender”, but all of those, even “Sugar Mice”, one of their minor hits, had a dark, acerbic message in the lyric.
“After Me” is a simple acoustic love song, though it does retain a few of the old Marillion trademarks in the lyric, such as the reference to the dog the girl finds:
”He loves her to hold him/ But he won't let her keep him/ And he claws at the door/ To be let out at night/ And she makes do without him/ She worries about him.” Some fine organ lines from Kelly and a keyboard passage right out of “Fugazi” and it builds up on a powerful guitar/keys combination and fades out triumphantly, taking us into yet another first. If you discount “Kayleigh”, it would seem that “Hooks in You” was actually written with the intention of getting Marillion a hit single. Didn't work, but it's very commercial and is the first point at which, linked to the previous track, the band begin to show that they are prepared to leave their neo-progressive roots behind to a degree and come out swinging as a straightforward rock band. “Hooks in you” could, theoretically, be by any rock band and while it has a great hook (sorry) it's a little less than playing to their strengths. It's a good song, but they can and would do better.
We end however on a return to what they do best, as the enigmatic “The Space ...” takes us out, with a staggered, fading-in synth line from Kelly, almost orchestral, which builds up the tension and then is joined by Hogarth's voice quietly singing the opening line before Mosley pounds in and Rothery joins the party. According to Hogarth, the song is something of a hybrid; a retelling of an actual event he witnessed when younger and a reassessment of his life in relation to that. There's a reprise of the familiar guitar line from “The Web” as the song reaches its midpoint, before Rothery screams off on an expressive solo on the back of a dramatic, orchestral keyboard passage. Everything then falls back for a solo vocal from Hogarth backed only by organ before the rest of the band pile in, taking the song, and the album to its conclusion, Mosley underlining this with a big, booming echoing final drumbeat.
TRACK LISTING
1. The King of Sunset Town
2. Easter
3. The uninvited guest
4. Seasons end
5. Holloway girl
6. Berlin
7. After me
8. Hooks in you
9. The Space...
Having heard this album I was more than happy. There's no way I would, or will, ever forget Fish nor his contribution to Marillion's sound, and fame, and position as leaders of the neo-prog revolution of the eighties, but he had made his decision and all that was left now was for us to hope and pray that a suitable replacement could be found. And our prayers had been answered. Although some of the songs made me look a little more closely, at running times and subjects, and wonder just how much Marillion were going to change over the years (answer: quite a lot, but they would never really ditch their prog rock sensibilities and would return to them with a vengeance for 1991's
Brave), this was not the disaster it could potentially have been. In fact, it was nothing like a disaster: it was almost a vindication that the band were not dependent on Fish, and that they could stand on their own feet without him.
A few months later, Fish would release his first solo album, and many Marillion fans would be torn, unsure of who to support, but not me. I bought the output from both camps and enjoyed them all (mostly), and it was now clear that in the case of Marillion, they had set down a new foundation which was solid and built to last. The past was the past, and would never be forgotten, but it was time to move on.
And the music of Marillion was, I could see, in very safe hands.
Rating: 9.7/10