Dang, that's actually really cool. Without changing the instrumentation that much, he completely changed up the vibe of the song.

That's what I was saying. This is not a song I would ever have conceived using guitars in a rock context, and yet, there it is...

Those who know my journal and have been here a while may remember that a couple of years back I used to run two daily sections, “Random Track of the Day” and “The Daily Earworm.” Keeping this up on a daily basis soon became a pain and I knocked both on the head. This new section is nothing to do with either of those, and yet there are some basic similarities, with the idea having been somewhat born from a kind of amalgamation of those two ideas.

From time to time, I wake up (as you probably do) with a song inexplicably lodged in my head. It may be a song I haven't heard for years, but for some reason --- maybe it was involved in a dream I had which I no longer remember on waking --- it's there when I open my eyes and I go around for an hour or so after getting up, humming or singing it. When this happens, from now on, assuming the song is interesting enough for me to write about it, I will do so here. I'll tell you what I know of it, the artiste that sings it, and any other information that seems relevant, interesting, or will just fill up space. ;)

Whereas RtotD and TDE were songs I purposely chose (even if at random) to feature each day, these will not be anything of the sort. Firstly, they will most certainly not be daily, or maybe even weekly or monthly. If nothing else, they'll serve to fill in for that one time out of a thousand when I have nothing written! ;) There'll be no real order on them; I may feature one today and not another for three months, and then six together, who knows? But they will be born from actual experience in my sleeping state, or anywhere else that they happen to pop into my brain. In other words, they will be
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The first one I want to look at is, oddly, not one that was playing in my head when I awoke. In fact, this morning I woke up with Billy Idol's “Hot in the city” running around in my brain. It's a great song, but for some reason put me in mind of another, one I have not heard in at least thirty years, and which has a similar title.
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Hot child in the city by Nick Gilder, from the album City Lights, 1978

The things you learn when you start to research! I had no idea who Nick Gilder was, and for some reason --- maybe because their names sound a little similar --- had him linked in with Nils Lofgren! But it turns out Gilder was singer in the glam rock band Sweeney Todd, who also were home at one time to one Bryan Adams, and who had a big hit of their own, and this is where serendipity and coincidence collide, as the name of that single was “Roxy roller”! Sound like one of our favourite MB members? Perhaps she knows the song. And yet, this is a Canadian band. Or was. After success with that single, which got to number one, Gilder went solo and this is from his second album.

It's quite clever really, as it's an uptempo, feel-good pop song but Gilder tells us it is in fact written about the curse of child prostitution. He wrote it from the point of view of someone looking for just such an assignation on the dark city streets, which makes the lyric a little more disturbing when you know the story behind it. Listen to this: ”Come on down to my place, baby/ We'll talk about love/ Come on down to my place, woman/ We'll make love.” When you realise he's talking to a fifteen or sixteen-year old --- and he knows that --- well it just makes you shudder.

But it's still a great song, and everyone else thought so too, as it went to number one for him in Canada and in the USA, emulating the success he had with Sweeney Todd. After that of course he had no more hits, though he released six more albums, wrote songs from Better Midler and the late Joe Cocker, as well as Pat Benatar's hit “The Warrior”. He's still recording and touring today, but I guess if he's known at all, it'll be for one of those two big hit singles.

Note: having hit on a pretty cool way of reviewing albums with my "Love or Hate?" thread, I've decided to henceforth apply this format to my own reviews here, and in other journals. I'll still be doing my usual long-winded diatribe of course (hell, I wouldn't be Trollheart if I wasn't expostulating at length about some line of lyric or a keyboard solo, or some "introspective guitar", now would I?) but in some cases I may just take that alternative route. When I don't though, I'll be upgrading the Tracklisting to "Tracklisting and Rating", and colour-coding each track so that you can, if you want, at a glance, see what I thought of the album.

I'm sure most of you know the codes by now but in case not it's
Green for Love
Red for Hate
White for Meh
and Blue for True Love, which means obviously I really love that track. I'll also colour-code the title so that you know beforehand where I stand on it.


We've done both stages of a band's life, so to speak, with “Maiden Voyages” concentrating on the beginnings of the artiste and their first album, while “Swan Song” has taken a look at their final offering, but what about that transitional time when a band undergoes a serious lineup change? Like when a lead singer, founder or otherwise important band member leaves, whether through mutual agreement, over artistic differences, or a big knockdown fight? Or when someone dies, or a band splits into two incarnations of itself? When these things happen, things can go one of two ways: the band can fall apart and perhaps limp on for a short time before imploding, or they can suck it up, either advertise for a replacement or soldier on as they are, and resign themselves to being a man short, but determined to be just as good as, if not better than before.

In other words, when those fateful words “X is leaving band Y” hit the music headlines, fans of the band hang their heads and wring their hands and wonder what is now going to happen. Is this the end of an era, the sun setting on a once-great band's history, or is there a chance it will be
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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”.
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Seasons end --- Marillion --- 1989 (EMI)

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 obstruse 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, aching 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 am 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.

TRACKLISTING AND RATING

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, as already reviewed), 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.

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Most of us probably know what power exchange in a relationship is (and for those who don't: get out more!), but it's seldom you see it taking place in a song. Even more unlikely that it should occur in the songwriting of a man who has become known as a pretty inoffensive pop singer/songwriter and balladeer, not exactly known for courting controversy. This song doesn't, either. Court controversy, that is. It appears on his third album and was in fact very well received at the time, being on the face of it a --- say it with me --- inoffensive pop ballad. But look into the lyric and there is something much deeper and even very slightly sinister going on.
A rainy night in Paris (Chris de Burgh) 1977 from the album At the end of a perfect day
Music and Lyrics by Chris de Burgh
It opens as a man breaks the sad news to his lover that he must leave her. They are standing on the Champs Elysee, and he has to leave the country. It's winter, and he reckons he won't return until the spring --- ”We'll meet again in Paris/When there are flowers on the Champs Elysee”. The girl is, naturally, worried that he will not return --- ”How long? She said. How long?/ And will your love be strong?/ When you're across the sea/ Will your heart remember me?” He reassures her he will come back. But then something strange happens.

In the second and closing verse, she realises this is a vain hope; he is not coming back (or she has convinced herself he is not) and though she mouths pretty promises to him --- ”And then, she said, and then/ Our love will grow again” --- he begins to see that she is not in earnest, that she has decided he is lost to her, does not trust him to come back to her, or has made the decision not to wait, perhaps in vain, for him, and has effectively ended the relationship. ”In her eyes he sees/ Her words of love/ Are only words to please” and by the time they part the man is convinced they will never be together again: ”I know by the lights of Paris/ I will never see her again.”

So it's a very interesting and quite startling exchange of power in the song. Initially, you have the man, trying to comfort the girl but determined to leave, promising to come back, and she all upset and doubtful. He is most definitely in control at this point. He reassures her and she wonders if she can trust him, is his love strong enough to sustain a long-distance relationship? Will he come back to her? But somewhere along the way, during the conversation, whether she sees something in his eyes, hears in it his tone or just simply decides she has had enough and is not going to be toyed with, the power dynamic shifts and she chooses to take the lead, not telling him that the romance is over, but making it clear via her platitudes or something in her eyes that she will not be waiting for him. The man is now in the position of having been dumped, effectively, when just prior to this he was doing the dumping. He is now the recipient of empty promises, and, whether he originally intended to come back or was just covering himself and trying to hedge his bets, he is now the one who is being played.

I've never quite seen such a transformation take place within a short time in a song, and for me, it lifts the songs out of the realm of ordinary ballad (though it's a fine one) and into a much murkier, darker world, which for Mr. Clean, Chris de Burgh, is unusual indeed.

”It's a rainy night in Paris
And the harbour lights are low.
He must leave his love in Paris
Before the winter snow.

On a lonely street in Paris
He held her close to say
“We'll meet again in Paris
When there are flowers on the Champs Elysee.”

“How long?” she said, “How long?
And will your love be strong?
When you're across the sea
Will your heart remember me?”

Then she gave him words to cling to
When the winter nights were long:
“Nous serons encore amoures
Avec le coleur du printemps.”

“And then,” she said, “and then
Our love will grow again.”
Ah, but in her eyes he sees
Her words of love are only words to please.

And now the lights of Paris
Grow dim and fade away
And I know by the lights of Paris
I will never see her again.

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If anyone asked me what my favourite band was, I'd have no hesitation in saying Genesis. If they asked what my second-favourite was, it's these guys. I've followed them since their debut single in 1982 followed by their debut album in 1983, and never once missed a single album. Apart from one, I've always been enthralled by their output and it's always been consistently good. Even after a major lineup change in 1988, when it looked like the band could go under, they survived, recruited a new singer and frontman and continued on where they had left off, becoming even more popular and often a little more mainstream, though never losing the progressive rock edge which had made them into what they were.

I don't know how long this is going to take --- my Tom Waits discography took three months --- but as before, while I'm doing this there will be no other entries in this journal. So if you don't like prog rock, or specifically this band, then stay away for a while as the journal is going to be totally dedicated to them.

If you do like them, then you're in luck as we begin the complete discography of
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Formed in 1979 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, Marillion began life as Silmarillion, taking their name from the JRR Tolkien book that preceded both The Hobbit and of course The Lord of the Rings, but soon dropped the first three letters rather than face a copyright lawsuit. They built their initial following on frontman Derek Dick, known by his stagename and ever afterwards as Fish, and his engaging, often jarring Peter Gabrielesque theatrics. Fish wore greasepaint makeup and did things like using the microphone to machinegun down the audience during performances of one of their best loved songs, “Forgotten sons”. But Marillion was not just Fish; he wrote the lyrics and sang, but the rest of the band played and wrote the music, and together they formed a real powerhouse that brought the thought-dead subgenre of progressive rock right back into the musical consciousness and into the clubs and halls of Britain.

Initially, Marillion's lineup was
Fish on vocals
Steve Rothery on guitar
Mark Kelly on keyboards
Pete Trewavas on bass
Mick Pointer on drums

With the single exception of Pointer departing after the debut album, to be replaced by Ian Mosley, and the highly-publicised exit of Fish after their fourth album, his shoes stepped into by Steve Hogarth, Marillion has remained pretty much the same throughout their long career. Even now they are as popular as ever, though of course mainstream success pretty much eludes them, as it did most of their contemporaries in the seventies. But to those who know and care, Marillion are still a major force in a subgenre which has grown well beyond the boundaries that were established in the early eighties, and beyond the borders of its home country, England. Now prog rock is in America, Poland, Finland, Argentina .... but Marillion still come very high in the pecking order. Why? If you don't know, then come with me on a journey through the world of the Jester, and beyond.

Vanguards of the neo-prog revival of the eighties, Marillion first came to the notice of EMI in 1982 after recording a three-track demo,and the label signed them, releasing their first single, which oddly would not feature on their debut album the following year. For many people, they turned the clock back to the seventies with their intricate melodies, lyrics and epic songs that often lasted over eight or nine minutes at a time. For certain people this was seen as bad, a regression in music and a step backwards to the “bad old days” of the overblown, pretentious prog rock gods like ELP, Yes and Genesis, but to others it was a breath of fresh air in a world stifled with hair metal, pop and the remnants of the punk era. Over thecourse of their, to date, over thirty year career, Marillion would go through lineup changes, pioneer a new way of doing business and move from progressive rock to rock, to almost pop and back. They would have an almost-number one single and several top ten singles, but their strength would always remain in their albums, of which they have so far released sixteen, and in their fanbase, who remained staunchly loyal, even when frontman and driving force Fish left the band in 1988.

Their first album has already been reviewed by me in the “Albums that changed my life” section, and you can read it here http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ml#post1184445. Some more of their output has been reviewed too, and when these crop up in the discography I will let you know and direct you to the relevant page. For now though, it's time to begin our exploration proper of the music of this most innovative band by looking into their second album, released a mere year after their debut, and which would be followed a year later by what would basically be seen as the third part of a trilogy that began with Script For A Jester's Tear.

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Fugazi (1984)

Although their debut had hardly set the music world alight (and with only six tracks in total I don't think it was ever intended to) Marillion did seem to take into account this time out that their songs were perhaps just a little too long to lend themselves even to radio airplay, everything on the debut being over seven minutes long, with the exception of “He knows you know”, which in fact became one of the two singles taken from the album. But it was clear that shorter, snappier, more accessible songs were required if Marillion were to make any sort of inroads on the charts, and while many musicians will tell you they write purely for the pleasure and for the integrity of the albums they make, who honestly does not want chart success? If nothing else, it can lead to new revenue streams, new fans and higher sales for your albums.

Which is not to say that Fugazi was written with singles in mind, because it was not; as dark as the debut had been, this was just as bleak, containing such lyrical themes as desertion, jealousy, revenge and social alienation, to say nothing of a strong strain of seeming misogynism that seemed to run through at least their early albums, as women were cast in the roles of temptresses (“She chameleon”, “Emerald lies”), objects of revenge (“Incubus”) or destroyers of marriage (“Jigsaw”, and again to an extent “Emerald lies”). I never quite noticed before how badly women are treated in Fish's lyrics, right up to his final album with Marillion. So in terms of singles, this album looked on the face of it to be as unlikely a candidate for chart success as had its predecessor.

But it did have them, although proper chart success would elude Marillion until the release of their third album. This album is also a very angry one, punctuated by Fish's scathing, acerbic lyrics against which a backdrop of often sharp guitar and thumping drumming is laid down. Unlike its predecessor, Fugazi opens with a low rising synth and guitar in a kind of almost eastern chant phrasing with attendant moans from Fish, the music building very slowly, gradually bringing in the percussion, perhaps intentionally given the subject, and finally Fish yells a sort of unintelligible roar like “Sha!” or something before Steve Rothery takes off on a kind of funky guitar intro as “Assassing” begins.

I'm not quite sure of the circumstances surrounding the departure of original drummer and founder Mick Pointer, but it's clear it was not an amicable parting, as this song is “dedicated” to him, and it's very clear from the lyric that Fish (and presumably the rest of Marillion) are not impressed. When Fish sings (or rather, spits) ”On the sacrificial altar to success my friend/ Unleash a strange from a kiss my friend/ No incantations of remorse my friend/ Unsheath the blade within the voice, my friend?” you can get an idea of the depth of anger there is against the former drummer. There's a screeching solo from Rothery before it all settles down into a sort of low hum and builds slowly behind Fish as he goes all-out on the alliteration: “Venomous verbs”, "Adjectives of annihilation", “Apocalyptic alphabet”, “Syllables of slaughter”, they're all here and if Fish goes a little overboard making his point perhaps we can forgive him. It's a powerful opener though, and when compared to the more laidback, sombre tone of the opener of the previous album, something of a shock. Kind of like reaching out to pet a bunny rabbit who snaps off your finger.

Of course, at this point we've known that Marillion are capable of punching it up and injecting venom into their music: “Market square heroes”, although no ton the debut, was a searing indictment of unemployment and the policies of the Thatcher government, something Fish would revisit partially on his second solo album, Internal Exile, and “Garden party” dripped sarcastic satire and revulsion at the upper classes, while “He knows you know” was a stark warning against the misuse of drugs, perhaps a little two-faced given that Fish wrote the next album while “on a trip”, but the passion and simmering resentment in those songs can't be overlooked. This however was a totally different kind of anger, born of betrayal and disillusion. The last person you want to stab you in the back is one you believed your friend, and the constant, ironic use of this phrase throughout “Assassing” shows how deeply wounded Fish was by this treachery.

Another theme, as I say, that runs, perhaps worryingly, through this and subsequent albums is that of misogyny. There aren't that often females in the lyrics written by Fish, at least with Marillion, but when they're there they're almost invariably a negative influence, often blamed for the hero's woes, as the woman in the next track, which was actually selected as a single, oddly enough, has all the responsibility for a failed marriage and broken dreams thrust upon her. Kicking off on a sprightly arpeggio on the keys by Mark Kelly, “Punch and Judy” is a deceptively upbeat song which actually catalogues --- as do other songs on this album --- the breakdown of a relationship, in this case a marriage. I don't believe Fish was married at this point (not sure he even had a serious relationship going) so I doubt he's writing here from experience, but the venom in this track, and the one-sideness of the story, is cause for concern.

With his life now hopelessly in a rut, his chances of ever making anything of himself, the hero immediately blames his wife, Judy, as he sings ”Washing machine, pinstripe dream/ Strip the gloss from a beauty queen.” It's clear there that he's blaming Judy for losing her looks, as he plaintively asks ”What ever happened to pillow fights?/ What ever happened to jeans so tight, Friday nights?/ What ever happened to Lover's Lane?” Well, how can I put this? Life happened, mate. Everyone gets older and more boring and loses their looks and their sex drive. It happens. But “Punch” does not want to face that he might have some blame to shoulder here, and complains as he goes along about his wife's behaviour in the bedroom: ”Curling tongs, Mogadon/ Got a headache baby/ Don't take too long.” It's also obvious, reading between the lines just a little, that this is a story of domestic abuse, as Punch and Judy soon becomes Punches Judy, the anger and rage behind those words (”Punch! Punch! Punches Judy!”) giving them their own dark rhythm and power.

Even more disturbing is not just the idea that the hero is contemplating murdering his wife --- ”Just slip her these pills/ And I'll be free!” --- but that we, as the listeners, are being tricked into believing he is right; she deserves it. She has ruined his life, now if he kills her he can go on and make a new one for himself. I'm hesitant to call Fish a woman-hater, but if there's a clearer example of pure misogyny in his lyrics I don't know what it is. Of course, he may not believe any of these things and this may and probably is just a depiction of suburban life and how marriages fail, and yet, considering not only the subject matter of the next few tracks, but also the perspective from which they're viewed, it's hard to think that he's just making a point or playing Devil's Advocate.

“Punch and Judy” is one of the only, perhaps the only Marillion song I know of that has no discernible solo in it, other than the arpeggios that open and close it. There is no bridge, no real pause between verses and chorus --- indeed, no real chorus other than the title sung three or four times. It's a bit of an enigma: on the surface it's an almost poppy, breezy song that you could see playing on the radio, but what lies beneath is dark, twisted and very very distressing. Even the names of the two protagonists are carefully chosen, so as to reflect the undercurrent of marital violence running through the song. Definitely my least favourite on the album; I hated it when I first heard it, and while now, I can appreciate it more, mostly for its clever lyric, I still find it very repulsive in tone and content. The music, while good, is almost as offputting, like someone singing “Everything is beautiful” while kicking a child to death.

The marriage breakdown theme continues unabated as we hit the first ballad, and while “Jigsaw” is mostly driven on Kelly's rippling piano and keyboards, the tone of it is far more defeated, tired, fatalistic than the previous. Whereas “Punch and Judy” was characterised by anger, recrimination and a thirst for revenge, (as indeed is the next song after this) “Jigsaw” takes a more pragmatic approach. It's almost as if the guy in the song, unlike our friend Punch, has given yup, realising this is never going to work, but again unlike Punch he does not blame his version of Judy. He speaks of the futility of it all as he sings ”We are pilots of passion/ Sweating the flight on course/ To another summit conference/ Another breakfasttime divorce.” The vocal from Fish, in direct contrast to the manic, almost maniacal fervour of the previous song, is low, quiet, almost disinterested. It's the tale of two people reaching the end of the road, knowing it, and preparing to separate.

There is of course some anger. When we reach the chorus Fish yells ”Stand straight!/ Look me in the eye/ And say goodbye/ Stand straight!/ We've drifted past the point/ Of reasons why.” The music swells with him as his patience boils over, then it all fades back down for the next verse. A searing solo from Rothery takes the midsection before it all drops back and Fish asks ”You must have known that I/ Was conceiving an escape?” Some of the lyric in this makes no sense to me, as I must admit is a failing in much of Fish's work. He uses very high concepts and esoteric themes, so that most of the time you don't know what the hell he's saying, but it sure sounds good. I mean, ”We are Renaissance children/ Becalmed beneath the Bridge of Sighs/ Forever throwing firebrands at the stonework”? What does that mean? And how about ”Are we trigger happy?/ Russian Roulette in a waiting room?/ Empty chambers embracing the end?” Lyrical nonsense aside though, it's a great song and it fades out as it began, with Fish's voice whispering almost as if he's disappearing into the darkness ”I'll be seeing you again/On the ricochet...”

After that, things explode with at first just a few little taps on the drum from new man (and still Marillion drummer to this day) Ian Mosley, then a full blown run on the skins as Rothery joins in on the guitar, before it all softens down on the harpsichord-like keys of Kelly and Fish comes in with a quiet, but bitter vocal, dropping to a sibilant whisper at one point. Even given the vitriol spewed out in “Punch and Judy”, this is the first time Marillion use the word “whore”, and it will be used again, sadly reinforcing the view I have of this album's slant against women in general. Fish does however put in a showstopping performance here as he grins and salivates and prances about, declaring ”Plundering your diaries/ I'll steal your thoughts/ Ravaging your letters/ Unearth your plots!”

It's actually one of my favourite, if not my absolute favourite tracks on the album, not because it's also the second-shortest, but really because it captures Marillion at their very best. We get the feeling that the wrong end of the stick has been taken here, that something written in private has been aired in public and a serious rift, an irreparable rift, has opened in this relationship. When Fish growls ”I trust you/ Trust in me/ To mistrust you!” he is almost echoing Francis Urquhart in Michael Dobbs's “House of cards” when the Prime Minister tells us “She trusts me. And I trust her, to be absolutely human.” In the end of course, the marriage is over --- ”And the coffee stains gather/ Till the pale kimono/ Sets the wedding rings dancing/ On the cold linoleum” --- though we can perhaps feel it is the man who leaves --- ”You pack your world within a suitcase/ Hot tears melt this icy palace” --- but either way, the relationship has been destroyed, perhaps by outside interfering forces with their own dark agenda.

There is however nothing mysterious about the intentions of the “She chameleon”, as Kelly's winding, snaking, writhing keyboard lines undulate through the entire song, almost completely carrying it with a smoky, sensual and yet ultimately empty sense of promise, as Fish derides the groupies whom he also refers to as “vinyl whores”. Again, it's the women who are blamed for tempting him into sin, as he bemoans his lack of control: ”They know what you want/ They sing your name/ And glide between the sheets/ I never say no/ In chemical glow we let our bodies meet” but then wonders, and at the same time ensures this song would never get any airplay by mentioning the word six times as he wonders ”Was it just a fuck?” There is to be fair some semblance of responsibility taken here for his actions, and it's a dark and depressing song with a squalid, nasty ending as he cavorts in his bed of sin, recalling Matt Johnson who wrote "Our bed is empty/ The fire is out/ And all the love we had to give/ Has all squirted out.”

He has his revenge though in the next track, when “Incubus” apparently warns of the dangers of doing things in your youth that you may regret, and can be blackmailed for in later life,and of refusing to give other credit for putting you where you are. I would never have figured this out, other than that Fish told everyone onstage when I went to see Marillion for this tour exactly what the meaning of the song was. It opens with a sort of grunt and growl from Fish, with a loud, ringing guitar and powerful keys, and he grins ”You've played this scene before” to his aghast victim. A great solo from Kelly and then about midway he takes the tune in a kind of waltz direction, linking up with Rothery who performs a fine, evocative guitar line and solo. Fish references his own, at the time, predilection for wearing makeup on stage when he moans ”You who wiped me from your memory/ Like a greasepaint mask.”

His anger and bitterness, and his dark desire for revenge comes very strongly to the fore as the song reaches its climax, and then we move into the final act with the closing, and title track. Ushered in on a gentle, rolling piano from Mark Kelly, which would crop up again on future Marillion albums, “Fugazi” begins with a rather tired vocal from Fish, before it all stops for a few seconds and then comes back in on Rothery's chiming guitar. With sudden percussion underlining the change, the melody becomes a marching, romping uptempo number somewhat in the vein of “Market Square Heroes”, with such clever lines as ”Sheathed within the Walkman/ Wear the halo of distortion/ Aural contraceptive aborting/ Pregnant conversation.” In fact, there are two vocal lines, as the backing vocals (also sung by Fish) sing a separate part of the verse within the pauses as he reaches the end of a line, then fading back out as he comes back in.

With a general message, I think, of the world is completely fucked up, or fugazi as they say in Vietnam apparently, the closer pounds along listing the woes of the world: ”A Vietnamese flower, a docklands union/ A mistress of release from a magazine's thighs/ Magdalene contracts more than favours/ The feeding hands of western promise/ Hold her by the throat” and with racism and fascism raising its head, as it will again and again in Marillion's early music: ”A son of the swastika of '45/ Parading a peroxide standard/ Grafitti disciples conjure/ Testaments of hatred/ Aerosol wands whisper where the searchlights/ Trim the barbed-wire hedges/ This is Brixton chess!”

It all slows down then on a sort of bubbling synth and a stark guitar and bass, the tempo dropping as Fish declares ”Son watches father scan obituary columns/ In search of absent schoolfriends/ While his generation digests/ High fibre ignorance” and has a stark warning for humanity of its impending doom: ”The penultimate migration!/ Radioactive perfumes/ For the fashionably/ For the terminally insane.” There is some hope though, as he asks [i]”Where are the prophets// Where are the visionaries?/ Where are the poets/ To preach the dawn of the sentimental mercenary?” The song then rides out on an almost triumphant, celtic-tinged stomp, with whistles and flutes, something that would be revisited to a degree in the closing of the next album.

TRACKLISTING AND RATING


1. Assassing
2. Punch and Judy
3. Jigsaw
4. Emerald lies
5. She chameleon
6. Incubus
7. Fugazi

There are certainly parallels to be drawn between this album and Script for a jester's tear: both are dark, moody, morose and with little real hope that the problems within their songs will be sorted. Both albums begin with an accusatory song, though in the case of the debut it is a jilted lover while here it is a former bandmate seen to be treacherous. Both close on songs bemoaning the state of the world, though again “Forgotten sons” concentrates on the situation that existed at the time in Northern Ireland. Rearrange the lyric though, change a few words and it could refer to any conflict really. Both albums had two singles taken from them, none of which did terribly well. But whereas Script tends to focus, in the main, on one character, Fugazi widens that into couples, relationships, even to the point of taking in the world's ills in the closer.

The songs on this album are shorter, though not that much: we're still looking at three songs at seven minutes long and two over eight, give or take a few seconds, out of seven tracks in total. While Marillion were learning to hone and perfect their craft, they were still a long way from any real chart success, and it is perhaps ironic that their next album, a concept with most of its tracks in the double digits in terms of length, was to give them their two biggest ever hit singles.

This album however, shows a band growing, maturing and expanding their talent somewhat, while still retaining that which had made them, at this point, the darlings of the neo-prog movement. Their next effort, though, would establish them as true living legends, and go down in the annals of prog rock as a true classic, and paradoxically begin to lead to their breakup with lead singer Fish.

Ah, the concept album: staple of seventies progressive rock bands like Yes, Genesis and ELP, but by the time Marillion had come to release their third album, the idea of the concept album had lost much of its traction. In a world where people bought singles more than albums and where chart success was, and mostly still is even today, the barometer of success, concept albums were seen as a poisoned chalice. Most concept albums tended, if not to actually flow track to track like much of Pink Floyd's The Wall or Dark Side of the Moon, to have each track refer back to the previous and on to the next, linking each song or piece of music so often inextricably that it was hard to take one out of context and still understand and appreciate it. Of course, the aforementioned Floyd did it with singles taken from both those albums, but in general the songs work better within the structure of the album proper, becoming part of the narrative and fitting into the storyline.

So record labels tended to frown, as the eighties hit their mid period, on any album proposed as being a concept. Which makes it perhaps the more odd that not only did Marillion make their third offering exactly that, but that it also yielded them their highest chart placing and almost got them a number one single, a feat they would never again even come close to achieving. For many people now, the only Marillion song they know, if any, is “Kayleigh”, though few if any could tell you what album it was off. This would have to then be seen as the pinnacle of early Marillion, and certainly their best and most complete work with Fish. It would also be quite a personal album, concentrating on or at least signposting and referring to events in the singer's life, sometimes obliquely, sometimes blatantly.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...dchildhood.jpg
Misplaced Childhood (1985)

As a vinyl album, this runs as two single tracks, with neither side one nor side two containing any gaps or stops, and on CD there is a small pause after what would be the end of side one of the album, then taken back up on side two. The story behind the album concerns mostly, as you might expect, childhood, experiences, lives lived and loves lost, regrets, promises, dreams, the future and the past. As you would also expect at this stage, much of the lyrical material is couched in the sort of poetic, flowery language and rhetoric that often made Fish's work so hard to comprehend or translate. But you can certainly get the basic idea.

The album opens on “The psuedo-silk kimono”, with a big booming synth from Mark Kelly, a squealing guitar from Steve Rothery and a soft, almost muttered vocal from Fish. It seems to describe the beginning of an acid trip, under the influence of which Fish is said to have composed this opus. It's a short piece and really serves as an introduction to the album, the storyteller setting the scene as he intones ”The spirit of a misplaced childhood/ Is rising to speak his mind/ To this orphan of heartbreak/ Disillusioned and torn/ A refugee...” The swirling synth slides directly into the guitar notes that open “Kayleigh”, a song of love and regret which was to become their biggest ever hit. Perhaps because it is, on the surface, a jaunty, upbeat song and quite a short one, it somehow fired the attention and caught the interest of those outside of the Marillion/prog rock camp, and scaled to the dizzy heights of number two in the UK charts, only falling at the final fence because a charity record held on to the top spot.

“Kayleigh” uses much of that descriptive imagery so beloved of the Marillion wordsmith --- ”Chalk hearts melting on a playground wall”, ”Barefoot on the lawn with shooting stars” and so on, and as has been mentioned in its Wiki page, the entire album borrows freely from what we can only assume are some of the big Scot's musical influences --- Clifford T. Ward, The Doors, The Who and of course VDGG, and he even has no compunction in stealing a line from his own earlier work when he mentions ”Kayleigh, I'm still trying/ To write that love song”. But at its heart (and I guess again this is why it sold so well and was so popular) it's a love song, as well as an apology and a wish that things had turned out better. It's quite a frank and honest exposure of some very personal stuff here, as Fish did have a girlfriend called Kay Lee, so you have to give him props, whether he's embellishing and over-romanticising their relationship or not. The song features a super little solo by Rothery which is sadly truncated in the single version.

It flows directly then into a lovely piano from Kelly, nodding back to the title track on the previous album (and this will not be the last time he uses such a motif) as at the time Marillion's shortest ever song at only two minutes and twenty-eight seconds slides in. Also the first ballad, “Lavender” is based on the old folk song/nursery rhyme “Lavender blue”, and is perhaps unique in that it is the only album track that I know of where, to make it a single, the band actually had to make it longer! With an added verse and a longer guitar solo (which must have pleased Rothery after the hatchet job performed on the other single) and a full piano stop, the song was lengthened to three minutes and forty seconds. Almost entirely riding on the solo piano of Kelly until the chorus kicks in, it's a simple little song and I have a small personal anectdote about it, if you'll bear with me.

Having reached the heady heights of number five (their second best ever chart placing), “Lavender” was slated for a play on BBC TV pop show “Top of the Pops” and the band were due to play “live”. Suffering from laryngitis, and perhaps as something of a cutting comment on the fact that at the time, performers were not allowed play live for contractual and legal reasons and had to mime to their records, Fish appeared onstage with the lyric written out, and as the song progressed he pointed out the words, with the studio audience doing their best to sing them. Yeah I know, it's not that funny nor original but it's something I remember and if it was a silent commentary on the BBC policy of the time, a wordless protest, well he couldn't have chosen a better time or manner to make it. At any rate, the song recalls childhood infatuation, and does contain what I believe to be a clever line: ”A penny for your thoughts, my dear/ IOU for your love.”

As I say, on the album it doesn't stop but dovetails with the opening of the next track on a dark synth that drowns out the tinkling piano and takes us into one of the two multi-part suites that take up the bulk of the album. This first one is called “Bitter Suite”, with again typical fish wordplay which allows one phrase to mean three things, and is the shorter of the two at just under eight minutes in total. It opens on as already mentioned a dark synth which is quickly joined by a crying guitar and ominous, rolling drums from Mosley before Fish's voice comes in, speaking rather than singing the lines and really either betraying or displaying his thick Scottish accent. The opening section is called “Brief encounter” and driven both by Mosley's thunderous drumming and Pete Trewavas's pulsing bass, lasting a mere two minutes before Fish changes to singing against the dark synth of Kelly as we move into “Lost weekend” and a train driver seems to want to forget he has an ugly daughter --- ”She was a wallflower at sixteen/ She'll be a wallflower at thirty-four/ Her mother calls her beautiful/ Her daddy said, a whore” --- and suddenly Mosley's drums crash all over the place with Rothery ripping off some fine solos as we move into “Blue angel”, reprising the main melody from “Lavender”. This is just a guess, but when Fish sings ”It was bible black in Lyon/ When I met the Magdalene” I think he may be talking about the “wallflower” referred to in the previous section. This piece contains the extra part added to the single version of “Lavender”: the guitar solo and the closing piano piece, which does in a way bring this three-part section to a close, if only for a moment.

“Misplaced rendezvous” then opens on a guitar line very similar to “Script for a jester's tear”, a short, bleak piece that runs into the final section, “Windswept thumb”, which opens on the piano riff from “Fugazi”, after which the tempo increases on a chanted “Don't stop the rain” and then piles directly into the final song on side one, “Heart of Lothian”, where the boys get to have fun as Rothery screeches away on the guitar, Fish sings about life growing up in Scotland and sprightly synth from Kelly. This song is in fact broken itself into two parts, the first being titled “Wide boy” and I guess the “up” side of the song, slowing down into a sort of stately march before it slides down into the comedown, as “Curtain call” winds things up on a droning synth line from Mark Kelly, mournful guitar and thick bass and Fish's hurt vocal, wanting nothing more than to sleep but having to record, as he reflects (hah) ”And the man in the mirror had sad eyes.”

From here things take an upswing tempo-wise, though the lyrics turn even more bitter as “Waterhole (Expresso Bongo)” gives Ian Mosley his chance to shine, directing the tune with his native rhythms while Fish declaims the downfalls of a rock star, snarling ”The heroes never show” and taking everything down a slight notch with “Lords of the backstage”, further depiction of the life of a rock star in all its depravity. Actually, a line from the previous song really underlines this: ”Funeral hearses court the death of virginity”. Indeed. “Lords of the backstage” gives a definite idea of building towards something, as if the singer is reaching the end of his tether, and in fact the second suite, “Blind Curve”, swinging in on wailing guitar, has Fish sitting deploring the state of his love life, eventually declaring ”I just want to be free/ I'm happy to be lonely/ Can't you stay away?/ Just leave me alone with my thoughts.” That's the first part, “Vocal under a bloodlight”, and Rothery's chiming guitar drives “Passing strangers”, with a tired vocal from Fish and a rather sublime solo from Steve.

I must admit, I have no idea what the third section is about. It's titled “Mylo”, and seems to refer to some tragedy in Canada as Fish cries ”I remember Toronto when Mylo went down/ And we sat and we cried on the phone/ I never felt so alone/ He was the first of our own.” I don't know who Mylo is (Chula, I assume you're the only one reading this, so if you know, maybe you'd let me know?) The music is mostly driven on a soft chimy guitar from Rothery with some nice piano added in as Fish recalls one of the many interviews he had to suffer through while perhaps not being in the best of sobre health. ”Another Holiday Inn, another temporary home/ And an interviewer threatened me with a microphone/ 'Talk to me, won't you tell me your story?'”

Everything takes a much darker turn then as presumably Fish spirals down into addiction-fuelled visions, thinking about his childhood while Rothery leads “Perimeter walk” in on a solo acoustic guitar, then muffled, sombre drums as Fish speaks the vocal again, in a distant voice, as if in a trance, Rothery shadowing him with his trusty guitar, crying for his friend's slowly-disappearing sanity. It's here that the title of the album is finally used, as Fish, getting more angry and direct as the piece goes on, growls ”There's a presence/ A child/ My childhood/ Misplaced childhood/ Give it back to me” and this swells and pours out into “Threshold”, where he deplores the state of the world, much as he did in “Fugazi”, growling about ”Priests, politicians/ Heroes in black plastic bodybags/ Under nation's flags” and ”Convoys kerbcrawling West German autobahns (remember, at the time this was recorded Germany was still two divided nations: the Wall had yet to fall) Trying to pick up a war/ They're gonna even the score” and the constant theme throughout this is “I can't take anymore”.

Finally, his trip (I assume) ends, he spins down, crashes and comes to his senses, with a new understanding dawning, as we ease into “Childhood's end?” on a sort of bubbling guitar from Rothery. This has always been one of my favourite tracks on the album. Separate in a sense from the main suites, it would in fact I believe have made a good single; it certainly has the hook in it and a great melody. Thematically, it's the “morning after the night before” as Fish realises what he has to do, what he has been missing all along, that you can't recapture your memories or change the past, and you have to move forward and do the best you can. Nice little keyboard line from Kelly helping to drive this, as Fish sings ”Do you realise/ That you could have gone back to her/ But that would only be retracing/ All the problems that you ever knew, so untrue/ For she's got to carry on with her life/ And you've got to carry on with yours.”

I would have preferred the album end there, to be honest, as I don't really feel “White feather” adds much to the story, but I guess it then refers to Fish getting the band together and going out on the road to bring the gospel of prog and his own lyrical poetry to the world. ”I hit the streets back in '81” he sings ”I found a heart in the gutter and a poet's crown/ Felt barbed wire kisses/ And icicle tears/ Where had I been for all of these years?” The bridge between the two songs is very Genesis, a real Banksesque keyboard flurry, then it goes all marching and military as the album strides confidently to its conclusion. A final defiant promise from Fish: ”I can't walk away no more!” and we're out.

TRACKLISTING AND RATING

1. The pseduo-silk kimono
2. Kayleigh
3. Lavender
4. Bitter Suite
(i) Brief encounter
(ii) Lost weekend
(iii) Blue angel
(iv) Misplaced rendezvous
(v) Windswept thumb
5. Heart of Lothian
(i) Wide boy
(ii) Curtain call
6. Waterhole (Expresso Bongo)
7. Lords of the backstage
8. Blind Curve
(i)Vocal under a bloodlight
(ii) Passing strangers
(iii) Mylo
(iv) Perimeter walk
(v) Threshold
9. Childhood's end?
10. White feather

This is an intensely personal album. Of course, Fish put some of himself into Script for a jester's tear too, and what songwriter doesn't draw on his or her own experiences for their music, but Misplaced Childhood almost reads like a musical autobiography of Fish. He confirms on the Marillion website that much of it is indeed taken from his own life, though of course as is known it was almost all written under the influence of acid, so some of it may be more than a little embellished.

Written under the frowning shadow of the same dark barrier that had inspired Bowie to write Heroes, and which would fall less than five years later, there's quite a sense of impending doom and oppression about much of this album. A lot of that is the pressures of addictions, work, relationships and decisions pulling at the writer, but some of it is no doubt attributable to the realisation that, while Marillion were writing and singing lines like ”I just want to be free” thousands of people behind the Berlin Wall were crying and thinking the same thing in a very real way.

Of course Marillion didn't contribute in any way to the fall of that iconic, hated wall, but it must nevretheless have been gratifying to know that in less than half a decade, and as they set out to write an album that would return them to the dark prog of Script, the constant presence during these recording sessions would be no more, and Germany would be one nation, free and undivided, perhaps a metaphor for the spiritual healing undergone by Fish on this album.

Commercially, they would never have another successful album. After the initial euphoria of two hit singles and a number one album, Fish would begin to grow concerned about the direction the band was going in, and the rising expense of tours, and would eventually leave after the next album, bringing to a close one chapter in the life of Marillion, and opening another, quite different one.

But this album always would, and always will, have a special and treasured place in the hearts of all Marillion fans. It was the point at which the band reached their creative peak, and there would never be another album like it. Years later, Fish, now a solo artist, would return to record and perform the entire thing live, in his “Return to Childhood” tour. That's the power of this extraordinary album.

The problem with having a number one album is (anyone?) you have to follow it up. Not just musically but commercially. Despite the fact that Marillion just happened to catch the zeitgeist at the right time with Misplaced Childhood, despite the fact that nobody --- no-body! --- could have predicted it would have the success it had, try telling the record label that. EMI were in some sort of denial, a fantasy land where they suddenly saw all the money and time they had invested in this prog rock band come back to them; hit singles, number one album, sellout tours: fuck yeah! THIS was why they had got into the business, not to push dowdy acoustic solo albums by has-beens that were likely to shift less than a few thousand units. Give them Gold, give them Platinum! Give them glory and prestige and chart placings, but above all give them financial returns the like of which had never been ....

Yeah. It was never going to happen. Not in anyone's wildest dreams. The band knew it, the producers knew it, hell, probably the sound engineers and the lady who brought in the tea and cakes knew it. You have an album like that once in your career, unless you're extremely lucky or a real sell-out. Steve Rothery had said at the time of writing that “EMI wanted another “Kayleigh”, but I knew it was never going to happen. Hell, the first time had been an accident!” And so it had. Explaining to his wife how he composed songs on his guitar, Rothery had hit upon the main riff for the single that would almost take them to number one, and while he was and is a great guitarist and songwriter, he knew in his heart of hearts that that kind of inspiration only really ever strikes once. He's written some phenomenal songs, certainly, but never anything again that was so commercially attractive to the non-Marillion audience. And he never will.

Add to this the fact that Fish was going through his own personal crisis, both with his new wife and with life on the road and battling his addictions (unsuccessfully, and he was well aware of that) and considering a departure from the band, and you can see why the magic that surrounded and suffused the recording of the previous album was going to be markedly absent from this one. Straining relationships, massive pressure from EMI to come up with basically Misplaced Childhood II, differences over how the music was to be written and far too many wild and drunken, drug-fuelled nights all meant that the chances of this new album even getting finished, never mind hitting the top of the charts again, a mere two years later, were remote to say the least.
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Clutching at Straws (1987)
It's an appropriate title in several ways. Firstly of course, the band dynamic was such that there was almost two camps developing, one with Fish in it and one with everyone else. Fish was against the new manager who had been hired and wanted to dispense with his services, but the boys refused, thereby turning a loaded gun back on the frontman himself and leaving him staring down the barrel of an irreversible decision. Clutching at straws, indeed. The idea of recapturing the spirit of (a) Misplaced Childhood (;)) for the new album was similarly desperate, and of course the whole thing revolved around an alcoholic, Fish thinly disguised, where straws poking out of his current drink would no doubt give him the feeling he was sinking, or as one of the tracks had it, going under.

They did try though. Misplaced Childhood had been such a success that it was almost a foregone conclusion that the new album would again be a concept. I love Clutching At Straws, but I think the reasoning here is flawed. Marillion had come out with a concept album in a time when such things were frowned upon, as I noted in the previous review, and while it had undoubtedly been wildly successful, the idea of the new album being a concept too was I think pushing it. I can't think of many bands who released concept album after concept album; I think it's an event when a band does release one, and after that it should be more or less back to basics for the next album, otherwise you risk either cheapening the original idea or trying to ride its coattails to another unlikely success. (Another summit conference, another breakfast time divorce?)

But the decision was made, and against major deadlines the band sat down to write, though it came slowly. In the end, they did manage another top ten hit single and the album went to number two (second comes right after first!) so they certainly did not write a flop, commercially or stylistically. In fact, if any album were to be Fish's swan song, then they could not have written a better epitaph.

In a move that would become something of a trademark after Fish had departed, the album opens low and muted, with the sounds very quiet and slowly swelling , though not as much as they would on later albums like Seasons End and Holidays in Eden, and to an extent, Afraid of Sunlight. We're introduced to Torch, the central figure in the concept. He's a failed writer, musician and poet, who drowns his sorrows in alcohol and meaningless sex, having left his wife and children behind him, as well as his responsibilities. “Hotel hobbies” is a short song, opening with a low synth, quietly strummed guitar and a descending keyboard line that pays brief homage to Floyd on the opening bars of “Shine on you crazy diamond”, then a rippling synthy vibes line from Kelly and a muted vocal from Fish, before percussion from Mosley and Rothery punch through and the vocal gets sharper, more angry as Torch tries to write. ”The only sign of life is the ticking of the pen” he snarls ”Introducing characters to memory like old friends/ Frantic as a cardiograph/ Scratching out the lines”.

Note: you're probably going to notice more references to the lyrics in this album than I have up to now, or possibly will again. This is because I consider CAS to be Fish's finest moment lyrically, possibly because the subject matter was so close to his heart, and at times you really can hear his own voice and experience in the lines. It's therefore his most personal album, and considering that he was already entertaining thoughts of leaving, he may have, consciously or unconsciously, gone to great lengths to put as much of himself into this final effort than he had on previous albums, which despite their greatness never felt as personal as this one does. In many ways, I feel like this is Fish, looking in a mirror and not liking what he sees, as in the spoken part of “Torch song” later, when he listens but doesn't listen to his doctor's advice, and also it's him staring out of the music and the lines of lyrics at us, with his bleary eyes and slurred voice, a shaking finger pointing and saying “This could be you!” He could also, of course, be saying this to himself, and making a further and almost undeniable case for his expedited departure before the hedonistic lifestyle coupled with his own problems dragged him under for the last time.

Nowhere does this come through more powerfully than in his descriptions of the boardwalk as we move into “Warm wet circles”, with a perfect segue from the previous track on yet another wonderfully evocative line in ”When the sunlight flares/ Through a curtain's tear/ Shuffling its beams as if in nervous anticipation/ Of another day”. With a very “Script” guitar line leading it, the metaphors just pile up here: ”On the promenade” sings Fish, ”Where drunks propose to/ Lonely arcade mannequins” --- does any other phrase sum up more succinctly and, at once pathetic and sympathetic, the idea of the hopeless, homeless, futureless people who haunt the city's darker corners and hide from the light, as in the best of Waits's lyrics?

I could go on for pages about the lyric just in this song: ”A honeymoon gambled on a ricochet/ She's staring at the brochures/ At the holidays” and the last farewell from two young, probably underage lovers as ”She faithfully traces his name/ With quick thin fingers/ Through the tears of condensation/ That'll cry through the night/ As the glancing headlights of the last bus/ Kiss adolesence goodbye.” I love, too, how Fish uses the title to mean so many different things: ”A mother's kiss on your first broken heart/ A bullet-hole in Central Park” and of course the rings left behind by the glasses on the bar, as well as more, um, sexual interpetations of the word. But let's leave the lyric for now and concentrate on the music, which is driven by a dour and then lighter piano from Mark Kelly, allied to the breezy guitar of Rothery, giving the song a somehow lighter feel than is betrayed by the lyric. There's a sense again of “Fugazi” in the piano here, harder but it's still there.

Great solo from Steve and then Fish's vocal becomes accordingly harsher and more bitter as the adolescent girl surrenders her virginity in the dark --- ”Givin' it all away/ Before it's too late” and as the whole thing shudders to a halt on Kelly's piano it again merges seamlessly with the next song, led in by Fish singing in what sounds like a distant echo ”It was a wedding ring/ Destined to be found in a cheap hotel/ Lost in a kitchen sink/ Or thrown in a wishing well” and then taken in on a sublime little passage from Rothery before he changes up into a more upbeat, lighter tone and Kelly's piano joins him, Trewavas's dependable bass muttering away in the background, and Fish's lyric gets a little more political as he sings ”Paranoia roams where the shadows reign” and the chorus tells us a lot about Fish the man in reality. ”If you ask me” he admits ”How do I feel inside/ I could honestly tell you/ We've been taken on a very long ride/ And if my owners let me have/ Some free time some day/ With all good intentions/ I would probably run away.” Not hard to see that his “owners” would be seen as EMI, or even the band themselves, and that at its heart this song is a plea for release, for resolution, for breathing space and ultimately, as he says in the final line above, for escape.

It expectedly gets very harsh and angry in the closing section as, against pounding percussion and whirling piano he roars ”If some kind soul could please pick up my tab/ And while they're at it/ If they could pick up my broken heart” and the song then ends on a powerful repeat of the title of the previous song, eventually ending on female vocals from Tessa Niles, who has worked with such luminaries as Tina Turner, Gary Numan, Jaki Graham and ABC. The addition of the female vox is interesting, as it puts a very slight slant on the idea, but I'm not totally sure it works. Maybe it's meant to be the lamenting voice of the basically abandoned wife, I don't know. Odd.

Here's where I have something of a quandary. Being an old fart, I bought this album when it was new and on vinyl, and it did not have (nor will it ever have: the reissue on vinyl is the same) this next track. I only got to hear it as a B-side of a twelve-inch single (ask your parents or some old guy on the street) but apparently it is part of the story. It was included on the CD and it does fit in overall very well into the narrative. So, although I'm used to going from “That time of the night” right into “Just for the record”, I'm going to break with tradition and feature this song, as I think it deserves to be included. “Going under” begins on spacey, slow jangly guitar and dark brooding synth, and is the obvious thoughts of Torch/Fish as he contemplates what alcoholism is doing to him, the toll it is taking on his body, his mind and his soul. The lyric, for once, and considering the subject, is in fact one I consider one of the weakest, with lines like ”I ain't got no excuse/ And that's really the news/ Got nothing to say/ But it's my way, always my way/ Seem to be running away so often”, but it's really more the swirling, mesmerising, almost hypnotic nature of the music and the somewhat echoing fade of Fish's voice that really nails the song for me. You definitely get the idea of someone staring over a precipice, trying to hang on, or taking another breath before being dragged below the waves, and wondering if they'll even resurface. There's a lot of despair, fatalism and even a sense of loss and surrender in the song, especially when he asks at the end ”Am I so crazy?”

If that was Torch's long dark night of the soul, so to speak, he seems to face the next day with gleeful abandon and revel in his addiction, as “Just for the record” is an exercise in denial. A much more uptempo, upbeat song with squealing synth and tripping percussion, the opening line really setting the tone: ”Many's the time I been thinking/ About changing my ways/ But when it comes right down to it/ It's the same drunken haze.” At this point it would seem Torch has realised he is never going to kick this addiction, knows it's destroying him but is equally aware (or believes at any rate) that he can do nothing to kick it and so decides to wallow in his crapulence, to quote Mister Burns. He makes many excuses for what he does --- ”Just a revolutionary with a pseudonym/ Just a bar romancer on my final fling/ Just another writer paying off my dues/ Just finding inspiration, well, that's my excuse” --- but they are all excuses, and he knows this.

There's a great line in the middle eighth, when he snarls ”Too late! I've fallen too far!/ I'm in two minds and both of them are out of it at the bar!” He realises his problem lies in the fact that ”I got no discipline/ Got no self-control” and if Fish were ever speaking in the voice of Torch on this album, it's here, and it's at his most honest and naked. Nevertheless, the song ends with the grinning claim ”Just for the record/ I can stop any day!” The cry of the alcoholic the world over.

The big epic is “White Russian”, and here Fish's lyrics turn back to the poliical bent we saw on Fugazi and in parts of Misplaced Childhood, particularly on the “Threshold” section of “Blind Curve”, as he ponders and worries about the rise of neo-Nazism in Europe, something he has seen first hand when recording and touring. With a cold wind blowing in (to blow away the cobwebs clinging to Torch's brain after “Just for the record”?) and a wailing guitar, Fish mutters “Where do we go from here?” which will become the motif, perhaps not even for just the song (though it certainly is) or even for the remainder of the album, or even for Torch's future, but for the future of the man writing these lyrics as he agonises over where his own career, and life, is headed.

The rage against anti-semitism could not be plainer from the opening lines --- ”They're burning down the synagogues/ Uzis on a street corner” with the plaintive cry of ”Where do we go from here?” permeating every verse and in fact becoming the chorus, such as it is. The music is angry and harsh to match Fish's vocals, but calms down in the middle with a very “Fugazi”-like soft piano from Mark Kelly as Fish revisits almost some of the lyric from that song when he sings ”We buy fresh bagels from the corner store/ Where swastikas are spat from aerosols”, the mood, though still angry, perhaps a little resigned now, a little tired, the music reflecting this until it swells again as Fish gets his second wind and begins singing about gulags and red tape, and unless he's just railing in general against the injustices in the world I'm not entirely sure what he's getting at here, but I get even more confused when the closing tag line is used.

Cleverly he asks ”Are we sitting on a barbed-wire fence?” which really gives the impression of staring across into No-Man's Land, deploring the slaughter but unwilling to actually get up off your arse and do anything about it, then he uses that tagline: ”Racing the clouds home”. Maybe he means running to try to outdistance the terror and horror that is to come down upon us all, or maybe it's a metaphor for a pointless exercise --- running to stand still? I honestly don't know, but it brings the whole thing to a powerful close and his warning ”You can shut your eyes/ You can hide away/ It's gonna come back another day” is telling in the extreme, and when taken out of context and used for his own situation works just as well. You can get drunk, high or both, but when you sober up or come down you still have to face the world around you. Just to underline the motif then, Kelly finishes off the song with single-note runs on the piano that traces the phrase and stops midway, a clear indication if ever there was one that nobody in Marillion had really any idea where they were going from here.

From here the album goes into something of a Jeckyll and Hyde format, with the next track an uptempo, boppy song followed by a real comedown, another attempt at rocking out and growling into the wind before the final track has everything collapse in despair and defeat. “Incommunicado”, the only single from the album that could reasonably be said to have made any sort of headway in the charts, hitting the number six spot, recalls the exuberant keyboard arpeggios and joyful guitar runs of the likes of “Market Square Heroes” and parts of “The Web”, but it was never going to be another “Kayleigh”. It's fast, powerful, upbeat and catchy, but with a lyric that, if examined, shows a man drowning in the trappings of fame as he admits ”I'd be really pleased to meet you/ If only I could remember your name/ But I got problems with my memory/ Ever since I got a winner in the fame game.”

The idea of being pulled to this gig and that gig, this signing and that session, from pub to club to party, from concert to lig to interview, comes through very strongly in this and you really get the idea of everything spinning out of control and the singer being unable to do anything to stop it. Talk about events taking on a life of their own! It's abundantly clear from this that Fish is fed-up of the constant grind, the push to get a hit single, the treadmill of recording and touring, touring and recording, and somewhere in the middle of all this his marriage is slowly breaking apart under the immense pressure, like a paper cup in a spin dryer. But if any track on the album can be said to be a poppy prog song, this is it and it recalls the best of mid-eighties Genesis as it hammers along, blindly charging ahead regardless of the consequences.

Those consequences, though, are exactly what Torch is worried about, as he declares ”I don't want to be the back page interview/ Currently residing in the “Where are they now?” file” and it pushes him into a spiral of depression and despair as we slide from the somewhat simplistic joy of “Incommunicado” into the dark, dismal, dreary world of reality. “Torch song” rides on an expressive little guitar line from Rothery, almost ringing, as Torch examines his life and wonders if there is any way out? His doctor warns him ”If you don't stop this lifestyle/ You won't reach thirty.” to which the inebriated Torch philosophically grins ”Christ! Still, it's a kinda romantic way to go, innit?/ It's part of the heritage.” then coughing and archly adding, ”It's your round, isn't it?”

Torch takes his inspiration from Jack Kerouac here as he says he has ”Found a strange infatuation/ With a liquid fixation/ Alcohol can thrill me now” and admits "It's getting late in the game/ To show any pride or shame”. There is however time to rage, and this comes next as we move into “Slainte mhath” (slawn-cha vaw) with a big guitar intro that turns into a rippling guitar line as Fish sings about, again, all the ills in the world, and how life lies to us. ”They promised us miracles!” he bellows, shaking his head. There's a lot of reference to World War I here, and when he screams ”Take me away!” you can feel his pain and his panic almost.

There is one ballad on the album, and again it was a single but again it did very poorly, which is odd because I regard “Sugar mice” to be one of, not only the best tracks on the album, but one of Marillion's best songs. Stuck in a hotel in Wisconsin, far from his home, far from his family, Torch reflects on the last conversation he had with his wife by phone while on the road, groaning "The toughest thing I ever did/ Was talk to the kids on the phone/ When I heard them asking questions/ I knew that you were all alone.” He does at least take responsibility finally for his life when he admits ”When it comes right down to it/ There's no use trying to pretend/ When it gets right down to it/ There's only me that's left to blame/ Blame it on me.”

It's a soft, sad song with a really emotional guitar solo in the middle leading into an impassioned plea from Torch to his kids --- ”Daddy took a raincheck” --- which finally breaks down, literally, to show us the man slumped over a drink, quite possibly with his hand on the telephone, wanting to call his wife, but too afraid or too drunk, or both, to complete the call, and finally and unremittingly totally alone in his alcohol-hazed world. He realises with mounting despair that this is where he belongs; there is no home for him and there never will be. He sadly tells his wife ”If you want my address/ It's Number One at the End of the Bar/ Where I sit with the broken angels/ Clutching at straws and nursing our scars.” Everything has been taken from him, and he knows he has let this happen, and there is now no other solution for his life as we head into the final track.

With a big, booming percussion and an almost defiant finger to fate, “The last straw” opens with an almost reprise of the first track as Fish sings again about hotel hobbies, but with an acerbic, angry and almost mocking flavour now. A powerful marching beat drives the song, punctuated by little soft keyboard flurries from Kelly, perhaps representative of possible hope quickly snatched away. He sings ”We're terminal cases that keep taking medicine/ Pretending the end isn't quite that near.” There's no question as to where this song is going, and where Torch's future lies, and after an evocative guitar passage from Rothery which then builds back up he moans ”Just when you thought it was safe/ To go back to the water/ Those problems seemed to arise/ The ones you never really thought of.”

Though the previous song mentions the album title and there is no actual title track, this is as close as it really gets, both in terms of lyrics and meaning, as Torch finally surrenders to the inevitable, unable to turn his life around and believing the world, his family would be better off without him. ”Clutching at straws, but still drowning” he moans, as Tessa Niles, again for some unknown reason, comes in with a backing vocal which makes no sense.

There is a final coda, shown as a track called “Happy ending”, but all it is is the voice of Torch yelling “NO!” and then dark laughter fading away. Has Torch ended up in Hell? Was he in Hell all along?

TRACKLISTING AND RATING

1. Hotel hobbies
2. Warm wet circles
3. That time of the night (The Short Straw)
4. Going under
5. Just for the record
6. White Russian
7. Incommunicado
8. Torch song
9. Slainte mhath
10. Sugar mice
11. The last straw
12. Happy ending

If Script for a jester's tear was a dark album --- and it was --- then this is probably even darker, perhaps the darkest Marillion would produce before the unnerving Brave, already reviewed. But thought that later album probably beats Clutching at Straws out in terms of darkness and horror, Hogarth writes that based on a true story but essentially about someone else, nothing personal. CAS is rife with the personal demons of Fish, his fears about leaving the band, his fears about staying. His fears about his addictions and his fears for his marriage. His worry that if he goes out solo he might not make it, and his concern that he may be losing the friendship of these four other people with whom he has lived for so long now they seem like family.

It's an incredibly revealing album, and one that does not seek to excuse his alcoholism, or even explain it. It has no (despite the ironic title of the last track) happy ending, and could possibly stand as a cautionary tale for anyone in a similar situation. But at its heart, it marks very clearly the point where Fish has decided enough is enough: this merry-go-round must stop, at least for him, before he is thrown from it or trampled by the horses.

During the recording of the album many tempers flared, and in some ways it's a wonder it was ever even completed. The band seem to have had more fun and been more creatively inspired while labouring under the looming presence of the Berlin Wall than they had while writing this in the various locations at which they recorded and wrote.

But in the end they did manage to achieve, if not what the record label wanted, ie another smash album with a hit single (though they came damn close), at least a definitely worthy successor to their most successful effort, and an album that stands as a fitting tribute to, and swansong for, their charismatic frontman.

Love it. I'm actually a bigger fan of post Fish Mariilion. Amazing how they were able to carry on (just like Genesis)

I knew it! I knew you'd be reading at least! :beer: Great to have another Marillion fan here; I know I'm not writing in a vacuum.

I really like post-Fish too, but there's a special place in my heart for the early material, as that was after all what got me into the band. I'll be of course moving into the Hogarth era next, kicking off with Holidays in Eden, as I've already reviewed Seasons End for the "A New Dawn?" section earlier. Hope you're enjoying it so far!

The departure of Fish has been written about extensively by me, both here and elsewhere, most notably in the introduction to the “Brothers in Prog” feature, currently running but suspended for the duration of this discography, so I won't be harping on it any more. You can also read about the immediate effect his absence had, if you wish to, in the review of their next album and first without him, Seasons End, here, http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ml#post1599581, which was in fact posted only a few weeks ago in a new section I called “A New Dawn?” Two years after that album, after, as it were, the rebirth of Marillion, they were back in the studio to record and release what would be their sixth album overall, and the second of the post-Fish era.
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Holidays in Eden (1991)

Moving away from the darker, serious neo-prog of their first four albums, and continuing a sort of freedom I guess they felt they hadn't had since Fish left, this album sees Marillion probing more deeply the limits of the crossover into rock/pop/rock territory they had begun to explore with Seasons End, and in fact Steve Hogarth has described it as their poppiest album. There is certainly still some prog going on --- there's even a suite of sorts at the end --- but in general you can see where Marillion were now trying to reinvent themselves, not to put the Fish days behind them, but to stretch and expand musical muscles and ideas that had perhaps received short shrift from their big Scottish frontman. They probably had also realised, or decided, that the way to chart success, if this was indeed what they wanted to pursue, was through shorter, more accessible tracks and while “Kayleigh” had been a big hit, as has already been pointed out, this was more due to chance than design. Here, you definitely get the impression of songs being written in the hope that they will be hits, rather than as before, songs being written and then unexpectedly becoming hits.

But it opens proggily enough, with what as I mentioned in the review of Clutching at Straws was to become a sometime trademark of the “new” Marillion, a slow careful build up from almost silence, something they had tried with “The king of Sunset Town” on the previous album and even “Hotel Hobbies” on Clutching at Straws, as “Splintering heart” opens the album with a sort of tapping percussion and a hypnotic bass before Hogarth comes in with the vocal, Kelly joining in on the second minute, Mosley timing one heavy drumbeat with the lyric ”Makes my heart want to burst” following this up with a few more, well spaced, before in the third minute the whole band pile in and Rothery takes the tune for a nice leading solo. The melody then falls back on a guitar line quite reminiscent of “The Web” as Hogarth sings ”The same sun is shining/ On the old and the young/ On the saints and the sinners/ On the weak and the strong” eliciting a powerful solo from Rothery.

A big strong and passionate vocal from Hogarth then takes control of the song, underlined by Kelly's keyboard flourishes before the whole thing fades away, as gently and softly as it began, and we're into the first of the tracks that can be really termed as Marillion's venture into the world of pop/rock. While it would be 2001 before they would really go for it and release in effect their Abacab, the nevertheless wonderful Anoraknophobia, this album shows the path they were prepared to tread, and while “Cover my eyes (Pain and Heaven)” is a good song, it's the first time when you really step back and ask yourself, is this Marillion? Well, yes it is: the new Marillion; much less concerned, at this point, with ranting political lyrics and exploring the dark side of the psyche as they were under Fish, and more determined to, I guess, just have fun.

Originally a song written by Hogarth for his previous band, “Cover my eyes” was not surprisingly selected for single release, and whether it confused people, diehard Marillion fans did not like it and refused to buy it, or it was just too mainstream to fall into one or the other of the two camps, it fizzled out at the top end of the top thirty and did no better. In fairness, it's not a bad song, but it could have been played by anyone. There's nothing uniquely Marillion about it, which is not an accusation that can be levelled at “The Party”, riding under a doleful, almost hollow piano sound and decrying how easily innocence is corrupted under peer pressure.

”All of the people that she thought she knew/ Were never like this when she saw them in school/ She'd never been anywhere like this before/ Everybody so out of control.” It's hard to think that such naivete could exist in a girl of school-going age (I'm assuming she at least looked maybe fifteen, due to the line ”She bought a bottle of cider/ From the shop on the corner/ They didn't stop her/ Thought she was older”) but Hogarth is determined here to paint a picture of absolute innocence and chastity, and then gleefully watch as it is shattered by the roaming lothario who, vampire-like, entices the child into her first sexual experience. In concert with the girl's sudden awakening and realisation of the real world around her, the music gets more powerful and solid, culminating in a solo from Rothery as Hogarth wails, bemoaning the taking of her virginity.

Of course, at the end, she's left and cast to one side as her lover sneers "By the way/ Welcome to your first party.” A sobering tale, if a little trite. The next one up is another pop song, a simple ballad which while pleasant and catchy is again nothing like the Marillion I had known up to now. At this point, I had allowed the band some freedom to change with Seasons End, and while they had dabbled a little more than I would like liked with their sound, they hadn't changed the formula too much. Here, it just seems like they went for broke, as if they thought this album might be their breakthrough, as if writing catchy pop songs might somehow make them more acceptable to the masses, most of whom remembered them if at all from the one single which would forever be linked with their name.

Don't get me wrong: I love “No-one can”, but to paraphrase Mark Knopfler, it's not what I call Marillion. It's got a nice beat, and Hogarth sings it very well, Rothery's ringing, jangly guitar line is nice though there is less synth from Kelly than I would have preferred; it's just too, what's the word? Ordinary. That's it. Ordinary. I'm not used to Marillion being ordinary. “Holidays in Eden”, the title track, does at least get us back to some sort of semblance of prog, but it's quite confusing and I've never understood what the lyric is about. It opens nicely with the sound of birdsong and then a jet engine blasts across it before it kicks up into a really cool rocker with a nice exuberant chorus; kind of reminds me of a song that would appear on a later album called “Built-in bastard radar”. There's a pleasingly “Script”-ish guitar melody running through the verses and a lovely bass line from Peter Trewavas, to say nothing of strong, powerful organ from Kelly.

It is however just something of a break between the more poppy songs, as “Dry land”, while one of my favourite tracks of this era, and the one that follows it are pure radio fare, commercial hit single material, and indeed the first one was released. How it did I have no idea, but I'm assuming it didn't exactly scale the heights of the charts for them. It does have a really nice acoustic guitar line leading it, and Hogarth puts in one of his best performances on the album. It's kind of hard though to get used to Marillion doing ballads. I mean, real, love song ballads. They did none in the Fish era save “Lavender” and “Sugar mice”, yet on this album we have four really, this being the third. It does water down the effectiveness of the album, I feel, and seems to be something of a cynical ploy, whether by the band or their management, to appeal to a more mainstream audience. Nothing wrong with that guys, but don't forget the fans that followed you through five albums in the process!

There's a nice sort of almost pizzicato keyboard strings sound helping this along, and it is a very catchy melody, though the lyric leaves, to me, something to be desired: ”You're an island /But I can't leave you all out at sea/You're so violent with your silence/ You're an island I can't sleep”?? Lovely expressive solo from Rothery, and then we go into, um, another ballad with “Waiting to happen”, which sadly in a way describes my feelings the first time I heard this album. Again, I will admit this is a great song and I really love it. But there's just not enough of the Marillion I've grown up on at this point to keep my interest, and [i]Holidays in Eden[/[] does not come high on my list of favourite Marillion albums. Again there's the acoustic guitar and a soft vocal which slowly builds, and it's very well constructed. I particularly like when the chorus explodes, just as you've got yourself used to the fact that this is going to be a gentle relaxing ballad. Well, it is, but the chorus took me by surprise the first time I heard it.

There's a lot of romantic nonsense in the lyric: ”I keep the pieces separate/ I clutch them in my coat/ A jigsaw of an angel/ I can do when I feel low.” Hmm. Interestingly, that line contains references to at least two of the Fish-era albums; I wonder if that was deliberate? It builds up to a nice powerful ending with a searing solo from Steve, then drops off in the last few seconds, fading out for me, a bit unsatisfactorily.

I know I said there was a suite, but I'm not sure if the last three tracks are meant to be taken as such. The two last ones, sure, they run into each other, but “This town” only gets included because it's reprised at the end of the closer, so maybe, I don't know. Anyway, if you've been waiting for a rocker, here it is. With a big, stomping drumbeat, a growling guitar and police sirens, it's probably the heaviest and most straightforward rock song Marillion have ever done to this point. It's the old story of being stuck in a one-horse town, so nothing new there, but it slides gently into “The rake's progress”, which is less than two minutes long and follows the exploits of a romeo who keeps secret assignations with married women in this small town, driven mostly on Mark Kelly's thick, cold, dark synth line and into “100 nights”, which continues the exploits of the “Rake”, as he laughs about how easy it is to fool the husbands and boyfriends of the women he dallies with.

In terms of progressive rock, this closer is probably the nearest Marillion come to recapturing the sound they pioneered on four, maybe even five albums up to this point, with a real sense of dark humour underpinned by Rothery's gentle guitar line before it powers up for the big finish, giving Hogarth again a chance to really exercise his pipes. ”You don't know I come here” he sneers ”If you did, you would know why”. A big pounding drumbeat from Mosley and a soft bassline from Trewavas and we head into the finale, as Hogarth grins ”You didn't notice me/ When I passed you on the stairs/ How could you ever guess? / Looking in my face?/ How closely I share your taste/ How well I know your face/ Even the clothes you wear/ I've seen them when you're not there.” As I said, it fades out on a soft rendition of “This town”.

TRACKLISTING AND RATING

1. Splintering heart
2. Cover my eyes (Pain and Heaven)
3. The party
4. No one can
5. Holidays in Eden
6. Dry land
7. Waiting to happen
8. This town
9. The Rake's progress
10. 100 nights

I don't want to do this album down too much, because I do like it, but I still consider it vastly inferior to Seasons End, and some of the albums that came later could kick this into next week. It is, I think, the lack of actual progressive rock on the album, or at least the dearth of it, that concerns me and colours my opinion. There are too many pop songs on this, and too many ballads for a Marillion album. I get they were trying to partially re-invent themselves, I do. But it seems to me that on this album they went too far the other way, and almost ditched their prog rock credentials, on which they had built their reputation and their fanbase, to follow the path of least resistance. The fact that this album took them to number seven in the charts cannot be taken as any indication that this strategy worked: the majority of people who bought this album would have been Marillion fans. It's unlikely too many people just bought it out of curiosity or because they liked the singles. It's Marillion's fanbase who have remained loyal to them, through the split with Fish, two years of inactivity and a rebirth, and all the changes they have gone through musically over the years, and they were not going to not buy this album.

Seasons End also reached the same spot, while the next one, the inimitable Brave, would still make it into the top ten (just) despite being a return to the dark prog rock of their beginnings. So I doubt that going the commercial, pseudo-pop route really worked for them. Even now, with the band having been in existence for over thirty years, few people outside of their fanbase or who are not prog rock fans even know who they are, and if they do, it's via that single again. So they were never going to be pop stars, if that was their aim. I guess in fairness much of that popstar-wannabe attitude has to be blamed on their producer, Chris Neil, who had worked with Leo Sayer, Celine Dion and Sheena Easton, and who had turned Mike Rutherford's prog/hard rock sensibilities (have you heard Acting very strange or Smallcreep's Day?) into the almost faceless pop band that came to be known as Mike and the Mechanics. Actually, that's probably not fair, as their first album was excellent while the second began to slide, and as for subsequent efforts, well...

As I said, after this they pulled in their horns and revisited the more mature, darker and ultimately more satisfying days of the Fish era, and created what I believe to be one of their very best albums. However, I have already reviewed that here http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ml#post1403995, so next we'll be skipping ahead four years to 1995, and an album that would tend to again divide opinion, especially after the superlative Brave.

So where to go after that amazing album? Although Brave had charted lower than their two previous releases, and in fact the lowest placing of any of their albums, including the four recorded with Fish, it had made a very definite and triumphant mission statement: that after the rather poppy excesses of Holidays in Eden, Marillion were back doing what they did best. The fans responded and the album was critically acclaimed, even if it didn't sell as well as EMI would have hoped; so where now? Did the band return to the lighter but more financially rewarding pop of 1991, or forge ahead with a revitilisation of their sound and endeavour to continue to recapture the spirit of '83 that had been evident on Brave? Did they go for chart-pleasing pop, dark prog, or try to fall somewhere in the middle, and be as it were all things to all men?
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Afraid of Sunlight (1995)

In the end, they kind of went for the latter, producing a mostly prog album with some very dark elements that included the odd poppish song. Not quite a concept album (they weren't ready to do a Misplaced Childhood/Clutching at Straws again!) Afraid of Sunlight does nevertheless follow some overarching themes, such as the price paid for fame, the unreality of the world of celebrity, and how easy it can be to be lonely in a crowd. Dispensing with the services of Chris Neil, with whom they would never work again and on whom much of the light poppiness of Holidays in Eden is and should be blamed, Marillion opted for Dave Meegan, who for a time would become their regular producer, helming two more albums with them (though not consecutively). Meegan had cut his teeth under producing supremo Trevor Horn, and had also worked with U2 on The Joshua Tree: that's more like it. No pop bands here!

Many of the references to celebrity within the songs are veiled, presumably to forestall any legal challenges, but it's pretty obvious that opener “Gazpacho” is written at least in part about O.J. Simpson, with such lines as ”Did you carry out those threats I heard/ Or were you only playing macho/ And the stains on her Versace scarf/ Were they really just gazpacho?” The song opens with the announcement of a boxing match, then what sounds like John Lennon, maybe, talking before the thing gets going with a bright guitar and bass line, boppy drums and a catchy melody but still staying very much on the rock side of the fence. The contemporary lyrical theme here removes the song from being a proper progressive one, but it does have prog rock overtones certainly. Some really powerful keyboard work from Mark Kelly. More references to Simpson when Hogarth sings ”They say the king is watching his back again” and ”You think they will forgive a hero anything.” The song slows down in the midsection with a very dramatic flair, then kicks back up for the closing section and ends on some recorded television news as OJ flees the scene of the murder, fading into the distance.

I've never been a big fan of The Beach Boys, as everyone knows, so it's no surprise that “Cannibal Surf Babe” cuts little ice with me, with its homage to the surf rockers and its rather weird and trippy storyline. Still, it's fast, it's uptempo and to be fair, it's about the only real concession to pop sensibilities on an album that is far more mature than Holidays in Eden ever was, or tried to be. This song however is about as far removed from Marillion as we know them as it's possible to be, and had I heard it on the radio without knowing who was singing, I doubt I would realise it was Marillion. I suppose it's a silly little song the boys can have fun with, and pay their dues to their heroes but it does nothing for me. Far better is the first ballad, the appropriately named “Beautiful” which, while again somewhat naive and indeed simplistic in its lyric is a really nice relaxing song with some truly gorgeous soundscapes laid down by Kelly and Rothery.

It strikes me as odd that there are two songs very similarly titled on the album, one being the title track, the other merely replacing the word “sunlight” with “sunrise”, but so it is, and it's “Afraid of sunrise” that comes first, with susurrating percussion and a quiet little piano, a very laidback tune, with the vocals low-key and the suggestion of horns, though I'm sure they're on the synth. An aching vocal, like someone flailing around in the darkness, as I believe Steve Hogarth described the writing process for this album, the idea of being lost and alone and unable to find your way back. Lines such as ”Friendly fire in hostile waters” underline this sense of being subsumed by something bigger and perhaps much more frightening than anything you have encountered before.

Celebrity is as I say tackled in various ways throughout this album, though almost always looking at the way fame destroys people, or they allow themselves to be destroyed. “Out of this world” chronicles the attempts of Donald Campbell to break the sea speed record, which he did in the fifties, while losing his own life in the process. There's a sort of ominous guitar line fading slowly in and then Hogarth takes up the narration as Campbell dreams of breaking that record, the vocal slow and morose as if Hogarth knows (as he does) what is going to be the outcome. Immortality will be achieved, but at the cost of Campbell's own life. ”Make history” he breathes, ”This is your day.” Another kind of “Script”-like guitar takes up the melody before Rothery rips off a fine solo, taking us into the midsection of the song, where Hogarth really strains the bounds of passion with his vocal.

Accompanied by a lilting melody now, he bemoans the loss of the sportsman, and wonders whether it was worth it: ”I know the pain of too much tenderness” he says, then Kelly takes the tune in a dark, ambient direction as snippets of Campbell's last transmission before the accident that claimed his life play out across the music, drifting down and away to allow Hogarth to deliver the final lines: ”So we live, you and I/ By the side of the edge/ And we walk and we scream/ With the dilated stare/ Of obsession and dreams/ What the hell do we want?” A soft lamenting keyboard accompanies this and takes it down, eventually, into the sinkhole where everything vanishes but is never forgotten, though never recoverable.

Then we get the title track, which in ways certainly mirrors its almost-twin earlier, using some of the same lyrics but in a different, slightly more uptempo way and driven on a nice relaxed chiming guitar but ramps up on a big swell as Hogarth asks ”King of the world/ How do you feel?/ What is there to feel?” It's clear pretty early on that this is going to be a more powerful and passionate song; if “Afraid of sunrise” was the beginning of the road trip, then this is the screaming across the desert, wondering if you did the right thing but too late to turn back. Another great vocal performance from Steve Hogarth, proving that, though the ghost of Fish will never really rest, it has been at least quieted now, three albums later.

This is one of my favourite tracks on the album, perhaps my favourite, with a gorgeous little piano run from Kelly to run into a superb trumpet-like synth passage and a great solo from Rothery, the whole song then ending on a soft vocal and piano reprise of the opening line. After that, “Beyond you” is a pretty simple ballad really, nothing wrong with it, and indeed a lovely melody, more prog than pop certainly, but it kind of fails to measure up to the greatness of those last two tracks. Something very special indeed was needed to follow that performance, and this is not it. That's not to say that it's not a good song, because it is --- very good in fact and I really like it --- but if there's another weaker song on the album, though it's nowhere as bad as “Cannibal surf babe” it's definitely down there with that song. It is interesting lyrically when Hogarth explores the simple world of a child and how they get what they want: ”If I were a child” he says ”I would refuse to leave/ I would sit down on the street/ Kick my legs and scream.” Not really an option for an adult.

Nice sort of almost orchestral/choral vocal buildup ending, and the album closes strongly as it opened, with the tremendous “King”. This opens with first a very grunge guitar (see where this is going) much dialogue, snippets of conversations, interviews, then it all drops back to a sad and tired vocal backed by acoustic guitar as Hogarth asks the crucial question ”How long can you stand?” This song is written about both Elvis and, in some ways more importantly, Kurt Cobain, and examines again the way fame can take a person apart until they have nothing left, and nowhere to go, only one way out. In places, this is one of Marillion's heaviest songs ever, and beats previous contender “This town” into the ground, then stomps on the remains. It alternates between soft acoustic guitar and hard, sharp electric, with some fine organ adding its voice.

But the centrepiece of the song is undoubtedly Steve Hogarth's voice, tinged with tragedy and sympathy, compassion and realisation, as he tries to get inside the heads of these greats. Powerful solos from both Rothery and Kelly add to the song, but in the midsection it breaks down into a really quiet digital piano line from Kelly and an almost muttered vocal from Hogarth. Everything stops for a moment, then it rises on a slow, deliberate guitar and Hogarth's vocal getting progressively fiercer and more angry as he snarls ”You're sick to your stomach/ Of the sound of your voice/ And the shape of your face/ And the sound of your name.”

I guess it's easy to say “Ah boo hoo! He had all this money and couldn't handle it. Poor baby!” but it must have been hard to cope with all this sudden fame, and the massive responsibility piled on your shoulders as you carry the hopes of a generation and become so much more than a role model, perhaps even more than a god. The closing section reflects this as, similar to the end of “In the flesh” off The Wall the music gathers pace and power, getting more and more confused and chaotic, even bringing in the sound of a plane going down, building to a terrifying crescendo when suddenly it all just .... stops.

TRACKLISTING AND RATING

1. Gazpacho
2. Cannibal surf babe
3. Beautiful
4. Afraid of sunrise
5. Out of this world
6. Afraid of sunlight
7. Beyond you
8. King

In terms of tracks, it's back to the old original Marillion format with only eight on the album, and none are what you would describe as epics, the longest coming in at just under eight minutes, and yet, track for track, this album is probably better value than any of the post-Fish era albums prior to it, with the exception obviously of Brave. It's a powerful reaffirmation of Marillion's musical prowess and indeed their last for EMI, which would thereafter allow them much more creative freedom and release them from the constant pressure of having to come up with a successor to their most accomplished and successful album. After this, Marillion would take two years off before coming back with a series of albums that would re-establish their progressive rock credentials in no uncertain fashion, up until about 2001 when they would begin to wobble again slightly, heading again in a poppier direction for a time.

Steve Hogarth is on record as saying he believes this to be the best album Marillion ever made. Even leaving aside the Fish albums, I'd have a problem with that as I don't think this comes anywhere close to Brave or even Marbles, but it is certainly an album that showed that Marillion were back heading in the right direction and intended to stay on that path for as long as they could.

What's more prog than an album with a fifteen-minute track? In 1997 Marillion returned with their ninth album, to much excitement and perhaps trepidation, as they had just parted company with longtime label EMI, on their slow path towards becoming an independent, self-releasing and eventually self and fan-funded enterprise, turning how the music business worked on its head. But for now, they were with Castle Communications, which meant that the heady days of big advances, grandiose locations for recording and endless expense accounts were over, and the band had to knuckle down and really try to write to a budget. The result was another eight-track album which, due to its comparative lack of exposure and marketing by their new label, would fail to trouble the charts in any significant way, something that would remain the case mostly for the rest of their careers.
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This Strange Engine (1997)

Although I led by saying the fifteen-minute track is pure prog (and it is) it has to be admitted that little of the rest of the seven tracks here could conceivably fall under that title. And yet, the album does not feel contrived or cynically constructed to yield singles, probably due to their having been released from the never-ending demands of EMI. I don't know for sure, of course, but I'm assuming Castle Communications were a little more laidback, a little less rabid for chart success, and allowed Marillon more freedom in the creation of their music, so that they could explore other avenues, such as the almost Mariachi-style of one of the tracks, a close-to-acapella performance on another, and a heartfelt ballad the likes of which we had not heard since “Easter”.

Once again it's Hogarth who takes the helm solo as far as the lyrics are concerned, with some help from John Helmer, who had assisted in the writing of the last few albums. That must, I guess then, make this almost as personal an album for Hogarth as Clutching at Straws was for Fish, especially when you consider that the closer, that fifteen-minute epic, is an autobiographical tale of his own youth.

We open on a jaunty acoustic guitar from Steve Rothery, Hogarth's vocal coming in very early as the song takes a somewhat historical direction, with lines like ”You see my face in the stones/ Of the Parthenon/ You hear my song in the /Babble Of Babylon” and a great organ backup melody from Mark Kelly keeps the song moving nicely. Lovely little lilting piano line halfway through before Hogarth revisits Brave again for a moment: ”Took a leap/ And I landed on the moon” and then in the midsection the song breaks into a kind of anthemic chorus, driven on a romping synth melody very reminiscent of the “old” Marillion and grows in intensity, picking up backing vocals --- and indeed a full children's choir --- as it goes, basically cherry-picking phrases from what has already been sung till it rises in a triumphant roar and then just stops, fading away on a sort of electronic echo.

A really expressive guitar riff opens “One fine day”, a slow song and yet not really a ballad, a sort of sad realisation that all our hopes and dreams when we were young have failed to come to fruition, and the urgency and optimism of youth is replaced with a cold hard fatalism and realism as Hogarth admits he's ”Beginning to wonder/ If we'll wait in vain/ For one fine day” and a really lush little piano run from Kelly underlines this. The vocal is sung much quieter, not the energy of the opener, to denote how tired he is waiting for that sunny day. Midway we get a strings-style keyboard (unless it is strings, but I don't think Marillion ever used them) followed by a sublime solo from Rothery to take the song close to its conclusion.

“Eighty days” looks at the wonders of modern transport and how you can literally now go around the world in eighty days, or indeed much less. It's a nice mid-paced song that wonders ”What kind of a man/ Can live this way?” surely a question asked by many musicians as the grind of the touring schedule becomes too much. It's a nice song, with a nice refrain, but it's nothing terribly remarkable I feel. Much different though when we get past it, as “Estonia” is that ballad I mentioned. Completely in error, I assumed it was about the country, and perhaps their fight for independence from the USSR, but it appears that the Estonia of the title is in fact the name of a ferry that capsized in 1994 on the Baltic Sea.

With a very lonely, desolate feel, swirling, drifting piano and murmuring keyboard against a soft guitar melody the song takes shape slowly, the lyric becoming even more poignant now that I know what it's about when Hogarth sings ”You would give anything/ Give up everything/ Offer your lifeblood away/ For yesterday.” The usage of the balalaika really adds to the song, played by guest musician Tim Perkins. There's a great sense of space about the song, and you can certainly feel the expanse of the hard, cold, unforgiving sea all around you as breath becomes short and you realise you're not going to survive this. A very heart-rending song in, as I say, something of the vein of “Easter” from Seasons End. Kelly does a great job of making his keyboard sound like the flow of the slow, advancing waves, and the song fades out as you would expect it to. Definitely one of the standouts.

It's followed by another, as Steve Hogarth sings without any accompaniment the opening lions to “The memory of water”, a soft, reflective ballad of loss and regret. What sounds very like violin or cello soon joins him, but as none are credited I assume it's Mark Kelly making the sound on his synthesiser. It really adds something to the song, a sense of drama and grandeur, but the song is very much a showcase for the considerable vocal talents of Hogarth. It's a short enough song, just over three minutes, but it really leaves an impression when it's finished. So much so that when we then get “Accidental man”, it just seem so meh that it's almost a disappointment. I mean, it's a good song, and it rocks along nicely on a thick organ line from Kelly with some fine percussion, but it's just nowhere near as good as either of the two tracks that precede it.

To be honest, it's a sort of precursor to the kind of thing that would crop up later on Anoraknophobia, seen as their most commercial and least proggy album, and it sounds a little out of place here. Not so much though as “Hope for the future”, which features trumpet and a very Mexican/Salsa rhythm and structure, almost like a song composed while sitting around a fire after or during a beach party. It starts on a nice acoustic line with the guitar then kicks into a very funky retread of “All night long” by Lionel Ritchie (I'm not kidding: try singing it to the melody, you'll see how close it is at times) with conga rhythm and piano giving way to the trumpet which comes in happily. Again, it's not what I consider a real Marillion track; if they want to have fun and go a little off the reservation once in a while, who can blame them, but it's not what I would have advised on an eight-track album. Flute too? Yeah.

Thankfully the closer makes up for all this divergence and what I would call non-Marillion music. As I said at the beginning, it's Steve Hogarth's personal experiences of his life set to music, and while much of it is probably rightly only decipherable by him, there's a lot you can glean from the lyric. Opening on a soft flutey keyboard line the song speaks of Hogarth's childhood, and we're told that his father was in the Navy but came home to take care of his children --- ”Came home from the Navy/ To the mines/ From the horizon/ To buried alive.” A peppy keyboard line now slides in before Rothery takes the song with a chimy guitar which also includes a snippet of what sounds like a children's nursery rhyme and then Kelly's piano comes in to take over.

It seems Hogarth may be an only child, as he mentions ”No children to fear/ Or to play with” and his attraction to an upright piano, as well as being involved in the local choir. Appropriately a choir attends this section until Rothery bursts through with some very rocky guitar, the tempo jumping considerably as Kelly joins in with a superb keyboard passage that in concert with the percussion builds to a crescendo and then suddenly stops, falling back to lone piano, bringing back in the vocal. Mind you, I'm not sure about the only child theory now, as he mentions "Daddy came home from the Navy/ And took us away to/ His dirty grey hometown.” Hmm. A boogie rhythm now infuses the song, led by Rothery's jaunty guitar and some upbeat keys from Kelly and then a super sax solo (only, I think, the second time they've used that instrument) from Phil Todd before we head into the big finale.

With a soft chiming keyboard from Kelly, almost like a clock ticking down the hours or sand running in an hourglass, gentle jangly guitar joining the lyric seems to fall into a travellers' tales idea, perhaps the young Steve asking his father to recount his adventures and the sights he has seen while at sea, leading into a lovely guitar solo with accompanying choir before we wind up for the final section, as Hogarth's voice finally comes strongly, resonating through the final minutes of the song as it hits its climax, led there by a powerhouse performance by Rothery.

The song is listed as over thirty minutes long, and this confused me the first time I heard it, as it very definitely ends as just over fifteen minutes. If you leave the track playing for another fifteen minutes you will hear nothing but silence, until the very last few seconds before it cuts off, when you'll hear some acoustic music and Steve Hogarth laughing. Now this may be clever and funny, but I must admit at the time it pissed me off, and sort of still does. If I buy an album with a track listed at thirty minutes, I goddamn well expect thirty minutes of music! This is like buying a packet of crisps (chips, to you Americans) to find it's mostly filled with air and there are only a few crisps in the bag! Talk about a rip-off! I've never been able to see the logic behind these ideas of tracks that extend and then have a little bit tacked on at the end, and I guess I never will. It soured me a little, as I was then listening, convinced something would happen, that there was something I was supposed to hear. Eventually, after more or less giving it up as a bad job, I heard the final bit, and all I could do really was roll my eyes. Didn't ruin the track, or the album, but I could definitely have done without it. Bit of a bummer.

TRACKLISTING AND RATING

1. Man of a thousand faces
2. One fine day
3. Eighty days
4. Estonia
5. The memory of water
6. An accidental man
7. Hope for the future
8. This strange engine

I'm never really sure about this album. I mean, about sixty to seventy percent of it is pretty damn excellent, but when it lets you down it really lets you down. The added annoyance of the supposedly thirty minute track that turns out to be only (!) fifteen makes it difficult for me to give this album as much love as I would like to, and yet it is, perhaps not one of Marillion's crowning achievements, but still up there with some of the best. Over the next three years they would release three albums, each getting more and more away from the pure progressive styles they had been known for, culminating in 2001's Anoraknophobia, after which they would take a break and begin to reexamine the road they were travelling, how they had diverged from it, and try to get back on the right path.

And so we reach a landmark, as Marillion released their tenth album. At this point they had been together as a band for almost twenty years, with eleven of those being sans Fish. The pressure was probably on them to make their tenth record something really special, and though it's not a perfect album I feel they pretty much aced that intention.
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Radiation (1998)

This album has been compared quite a lot to Radiohead, but having heard little of that band's material I can't comment on that. All I know is that Hogarth did mention that they had been listening to a lot of Radiohead yes, but that they had not based their “new” sound off of them, it was more an extension and continuation of exploring new sounds and technologies, now that they were off the EMI treadmill. They also changed producer again, opting this time for Stuart Avery, a situation which would continue over the next few years as they alternated producers. However Hogarth was keen to point out that generally speaking, they produced themselves (preparing, it would seem, for the day when they would dispense with producers altogether and fly solo, as they do now) and that Avery was more a “sounding board”. Sounds like fun. I doubt Martin Birch or Steve Lillywhite would have approved.

Right from the off, there's an odd sort of mechanised sound about much of the album, as opener “Costa del Slough” features a big Peter Gabriel-like chant and orchestral crescendo, which would recur on one of the later tracks, before we fall back to a simple acoustic guitar with a mono vocal in a sort of twenties style piling into “Under the sun”, which I would really consider the first proper track, with a rocky guitar led rhythm, some nice whistling keys and a very upbeat melody. Good snarly little guitar solo from Steve Rothery, but again it's very straightahead rock with little if anything of the progressive in it. It's a song of pretty much abandonment and throwing caution to the wind, the idea of sunbathing even though studies have proven you're more likely to contract cancer from doing so kind of tying in with the question in the opener, ”What's wrong with the odd melanoma/ If it gets us all out of a coma?” I assume it's not meant to be taken as a serious comment on the dangers of skin cancer of course.

Another hard rock track (for Marillion) is “The answering machine”, which again features a mechanised stylised vocal (probably appropriate, as I guess we're supposed to be listening to an answering machine --- think old-tech voicemail kids!) an a driving guitar line, the tale of a man who comes to talk to his girfriend ---- ”We flew here to see you/ My feelings and i” --- but can't get an answer to his calls and spends his time leaving messages on her system. ”We walked and we talked/ And my words were absorbed/ Into the answering machine.” Don't get me wrong: it's a great track, as is the one before it, but it's only really once you've got past these two songs, plus the opener, that the album really starts to come together.

Nodding back to the themes on Afraid of Sunlight, “Three minute boy” borrows its opening a little from the title track to the previous album, and tells the story, set against initially lone piano, of a kid who becomes famous and then a rock star. Some lovely violin and soft guitar then joins the melody as it begins to build slightly. It's obviously not autobiographical, as Marillion would never be seen as, nor consider themselves rock stars, but is instead a fictional star in the making, though Steve Hogarth has said it is partially based on the Liam Gallagher/Patsy Kensit relationship, especially when he sings ”She's a pretty girl/ Don't know how it started/ She made a movie/ He almost remembered.”

But like all these kinds of relationships it's put under strain by the constant touring, groupies and the uncertainty when your lover is far away, perhaps even tipping the hat a little towards Fish on Clutching at Straws, and before long the music has got more powerful, the whole band involved now, a big chorus going as Hogarth sings ”Your girlfriend's gone off with the Jag/ Went back to her mum and dad/ Curled up on the studio floor/ You just can't do it anymore...” He also nods to Brian May when he sings ”Too much love will do you in” as Rothery growls off a big guitar solo and we head into the big finish. I'm not happy about the ending though: sounds like they weren't sure how to bring the thing to a close and it just sort of tails off.

Really though, from this song onward this album can do no wrong. After that powerhouse we have a quiet, introspective ballad, sung almost in a whisper by Steve Hogarth against sweet acoustic guitar --- played by Pete Trewavas --- as "Now she'll never know" presents a man in the deepest of despair, wishing to right wrongs but knowing he cannot go back. ”She told me go to Hell/ And here I am.” Says it all really. You can hear the pain in his voice, and the soft passion and regret he puts into it is quite stunning. Some singers need a full band and pristine production, and a big booming bombastic chorus to get their point across, but Hogarth has that way of making you feel what he feels, of drawing you into his world, as if he's singing directly to you and you alone. You almost feel like putting your arm around his shoulder and trying to comfort him. The next track, oddly, is also a ballad, or sorts, but with a lot more power and energy. “These chains” opens on pizzicato strings with swirling synth and another soft vocal that really doesn't resolve into anything more audible until the second verse as piano and guitar join in, a sort of Country feel to the former.

Nice rising choral vocal idea in the synth, the song building in layers as it goes, Hogarth's voice swelling and strengthening as he declares ”These chains are all your own/ These chains are comfortable” and it's clear the idea in the song is that if you don't go out and seek your dream it won't come knocking on your door. Excellent guitar solo halfway as the percussion pounds in, great organ adding a sense of majesty and grandeur to the piece, then some really nice violin or cello as we head towards the end, with the vocal getting really passionate. When Hogarth sings ”Will you die never knowing/ What it's like outside?” you can hear the urgent plea in his voice.

Another ballad, would you believe, and a gorgeous blues tune driven on a sublime organ from Kelly with reflective guitar from Rothery, and taking the same title as Springsteen's classic, “Born to run” is another standout on the album. I'm not sure of the wisdom of having three ballads (even if “These chains” gets a little more intense than a ballad is normally expected to) come one after the other, but it actually seems to work on this album. There's a guitar solo then to rival some of the best blues players around, as Rothery demonstrates a little-seen side of his talent, then it pretty much winds down as it began. Other than the solo, it never really rises above the level of laidback but with Kelly's sonorous organ helping out it really plucks at the heartstrings.

After all that soft and gentle music though, you're about ready to rock out, and “Cathedral wall” does not disappoint. Opening on a big, punching keyboard stab and guitar assault with added drums, it quickly falls back to a cool bass and guitar line as the vocal comes in relatively quietly, with a double-track echoing in the background, very reminiscent of Waters on The Wall. For the chorus it powers back up again, and Hogarth's vocal gets much more animated with vocal harmonies added in. I honestly have no clue what the song is about but it's really a return to serious progressive rock, and helps to end the album strongly, though it never really stumbles at all.

The midsection is a reprise of the opening salvo, with a descending synth line that leaves us with only acoustic guitar and vocal and begins a superb buildup which, when it comes, features a fine organ solo from Kelly, Mosely's drumbeat driving everything towards its staggering conclusion. Eventually at the very end we get several fast hard guitar chords and Hogarth wailing as if in pain or frustration, then a very quiet reprise with piano of the ending of “These chains” before we head into the closer, and indeed the epic.

With a low, trumpet-like synth opening and someone speaking who sounds like maybe Gandhi ( I know, probably someone else but I'm a little rusty on my Indian philosophers, assuming he is Indian; he sounds it) it bubbles very slowly to its beginning. Soft percussion, skittering keys and wailing guitar takes it into the second minute before any vocals come in, and when they do they're quiet but firm, as “A few words for the dead” gets going properly. A ten-minute composition, it is nevertheless not broken into parts really, and features some sitar and some other ethnic instruments that give it a very Indian, transcendental feel. Most of the song is pretty reserved and quiet, until it gets to the midpoint, where Hogarth offers mankind a choice: ”Tell all your family/ Tell all your friends/ Teach your brothers to avenge/ Or you could love.”

At this point it ramps up with the full band for the big finish, keyboard flourishes, sharp guitar, triumphant vocal and then fades out on the promise of hope: ”You could love...”

TRACKLISTING AND RATING

1. Costa del Slough
2. Under the sun
3. The answering machine
4. Three minute boy
5. Now she'll never know
6. These chains
7. Born to run
8. Cathedral wall
9. A few words for the dead

I never quite realised it before, but this comes close to being one of the most complete post-Fish Marillion albums they have ever recorded. There's hardly a single bad track on it, and even given the odd grouping of three ballads together, the structure of the album works really well. There's a lot of prog in it, though not too much, and enough rock to satisfy those not into the longer intricate songs. I had actually forgotten how much I love this album, and it would definitely be in my top ten. It would be top five but, you know, the Fish era is hard to beat and there are four of them.

Still, aside from Brave, for me, definitely the best thing Marillion had put out since the split.

I'm not entirely sure if they could claim to be the originators of crowdfunding, even if you just confine that to the music world --- I'm pretty sure Radiohead did it too, whether before or after I don't know --- but with this, their eleventh album, Marillion definitely set a new precedent when they asked their fans to pre-order the album after this, which they did, a model which would serve to free them from the shackles of record labels and finally take the final giant step to full independence.

This, then, would be their last album recorded with Castle Communications, leading to a totally self-produced and self/fan-financed future for the band. It's also another interesting mix of basic rock and pop as well as some really progressive tracks that almost nod back to their origins, and their first real attempts to integrate the burgeoning trip-hop genre into their music.
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Marillion.com (1999)

Tapping into the massive influence the internet was exerting over every aspect of life as the century and millennium began to turn (this album was released in October), this was possibly the album that should have come at just the right time to spark interest. Unfortunately, nobody outside the progressive rock world cared, and with the album being released on an independent label there was little chance it was going to become an impulse purchase for anyone. But it remains a fine example of their work, and opens with a dreamy Hogarth vocal backed by swirling synth and soft guitar until it kicks up on the basis of Rothery's harder guitar and Mosley's driving rhythm. “A legacy” is a good opener, but there's nothing really of the prog about it, and for my money you really have to wait for any of that till nearly the end of the album. It is worth waiting for though.

Oddly, many of the opening tracks would have made good singles and could have gained Marillion radio airtime, but none were released. This has a nice sort of mid-paced boogie feel to it, good vocal and it's quite catchy but you would definitely have to feel it's more towards the lower end of Marillion's songwriting spectrum. Interestingly, it's the only track on the album (and possibly ever) on which John Helmer writes the lyric solo, and there is no input from Steve Hogarth, who conversely writes the rest of the album's lyrics solo, apart from the closer, on which he has help again from Helmer. SO you could maybe blame the lack-of-progginess on Helmer, but then “Deserve” is another straight rock song and it's all Hogarth's work. Sure, his inimitable lyrics are there --- ”We get the dreams that we deserve/ The magazines that we deserve/ Page one and three that we deserve” --- but the song plays much more like something you'd have heard from REM. They even use sax again, only the third time ever in their career, which makes the song song even less Marillion-like. It's a fast rocker which hints back at the cult of celebrity, and even nods its head across the years to the Fish years, and “Garden party”. I also, to be fair, hear hints of Fish's solo “Big wedge” here.

The first ballad is where you start realising this actually is a Marillion album after all, with “Go” riding on a sort of shivering synth line from Mark Kelly, then a very Marillion guitar from Steve before Hogarth comes in with the vocal, quiet and reserved, a haunting sound that's hard not to pay attention to. Some lovely rippling piano is added as Mosley hits the cymbals with a shuddering hiss, and Hogarth remarks ”It only takes a fraction of a second/ To turn your life upside-down.” It's an interesting song, in that it really has no chorus. We go from verse one to a nice little soft guitar solo from Steve, which then hardens up and kind of snarls at you, then into verse two and then what could be regarded as the chorus I guess but is really just a refrain on which the song fades out: ”Wide awake on the edge of the world.”

“Rich” is a more uptempo, boppy song with a nice jangly upbeat piano driving it, but again it doesn't really say Marillion to me. Some lovely Fender Rhodes I believe underpinning the melody with some handclaps and kind of eighties new-wave synth, swirling effects and a catchy chorus with a nice motto ”To fall is not to fail/ Failure isn't about falling down/ Failure is staying down.” By contrast then “Enlightened” brings everything back to earth with the second ballad, almost ethereal synth and guitar line which recalls “Estonia” off This Strange Engine opening proceedings, ramping up for the chorus with a passionate vocal from Hogarth. Powerful and yet understated guitar solo from Rothery then it moves into its closing section, fading out slowly as it came in and leading into what many fans profess apparently to be one of the worst Marillion songs ever, but I really like it.

I mean, how can you not like a song with a title like “Built-in bastard radar”? It's another uptempo rocker, and explores the mystery of why women always go for the bad boys. Nice driving rock guitar from Rothery taking control, some little organ flourishes from Kelly and then Hogarth sings ”Guys who show how much they care/ Try hard to please but get nowhere/ You know that every girl on Earth/ Got built-in bastard radar!” And it's very true isn't it? One of life's mysteries, never to be solved. Treat em mean, keep 'em keen. Sorry, I'd rather be alone than act like that. The way the vocal is somewhat mechanised in parts adds to the sense of alienation perhaps of the “nice guys” who can't understand why women choose the bastards over them. Yeah, I like it, it's a good song and it's great fun. When Hogarth rolls his eyes and sings ”Thank God every woman knows/ It's piss and wind and fancy clothes/ That make a man a man/ Thank God for built-in bastard radar!” you just have to laugh at the irony of it all.

The song ends on a slowly descending organ which then merges with a sublime little guitar line as for me, the album finally starts to get going, and it makes a strong showing at the end with three amazing little tracks. “Tumble down the years” is a delightful bittersweet romp through memories and love, with a very catchy hook all through it. Hogarth remembers as he sings ”I took her hand and said/ Let's go together/ You and me against the world” and then goes on to recount the way hope like that, the first blush of romance and infatuation, and all those plans and dreams, slowly fade away and vanish --- ”Down the years/ We disappeared.”

The album then really picks up steam for the big finish, with two epics closing it out, and the lack of prog rock is firmly addressed as we head into “Interior lulu”. I've tried to find out what the title means but without success, and I have not been able to discern it from the lyric, so if you know please end my misery and tell me. It begins on a slick little bass line from Pete and a guitar line that would not be out of place on a Tom Waits song, sort of bongo style percussion and a soft vocal from Hogarth against now just the rhythm section. Kelly comes in with some Fender Rhodes and fades back out, leaving Rothery to take over before he joins back in again with a nice piano melody. The song, one of the longest Marillion have written, runs for over fifteen minutes, and at a length such as that, you would expect it to go through some changes. You would not be disappointed. In the fourth minute it explodes on a big guitar assault and organ flurry, as well as a thunderous attack on the drums before it drops down to a slow, almost melancholic, very dramatic guitar solo well into the fifth, which for me brings back the days of Script for a Jester's Tear.

Hogarth comes back in with a strained vocal then, backed by howling synth and chimy guitar as the melody pulls into a harder, more intense vein and we move into another instrumental, this time taken by Kelly on the synth. Another Script-like solo in the eighth minute, also recalling “Berlin”, then “Man of a thousand faces” peeks through on acoustic guitar as the song takes another shift before descending on a drony, eerie synth line with echoes of “Forgotten sons” leaking through, and a very it must be said Genesis synth backing with dark keys shrouding the tune. We're now in the tenth minute. Hogarth breathes ”We rejoice in being connected without touching/ Thank God for the internet!” and then at the sound of a storm Rothery grabs the melody by the scruff and nods to Kelly, who both then head off at a gallop, taking the song towards its conclusion.

Like the previous song, this one fades out in a long instrumental and slips very slowly and neatly into the next one, the closer, and one of my very favourite Hogarth-era songs ever. Marillion have done ballads before of course, but never as good as this. “House” rises on a gorgeous piano line and shimmering guitar, taking the best of Massive Attack and laying their own sound over it, drawing the stark image of a man left alone after his wife has left him --- ”After so much noise/ Freedom is silence/ Half the house is missing/ Taking half of me with it” --- as he wanders the now-so-huge home they used to share and tries to come to terms with being its only occupant.

I don't know if this is all Hogarth's lyrical genius or if Helmer had much to do with it (this being the only other song on the album he's involved in) but lines like ”Our eyes stare out/ While we hide inside” just strike such a chord with me, and bring home (hah) the utter desolation left in the wake of a divorce (maybe a death? But I think she just left him) and the refrain ”Looking at it not seeing it” really underlines this. Some excellent trumpet from Neil Yates and a final plea ”We built this house on solid ground/ Now it's crumbling, tumbling down/ Will nobody even cry for help/ As it slowly collapses into itself?” just bring tears to my eyes, as it does now. A stupendous closer, and if the rest of the album was as good as this and the previous two tracks it would be a lot higher on my personal list of favourite Marillion recordings.

As it is, it's not as if these songs save the album, but without them it would be something of a rather ordinary rock album. With them, it's more what we expect, and should be able to expect, another great Marillion album.

TRACKLISTING AND RATING

1. A legacy
2. Deserve
3. Go!
4. Rich
5. Enlightened
6. Built-in bastard radar
7. Tumble down the years
8. Interior lulu
9. House

As their final release on Castle, or indeed any label not controlled by them, this is a pretty special album. The pristine production is helped by having Porcupine Tree supremo Steven Wilson along for the ride, and though Stewart Every is here again, he's only credited as sound engineer, which ties in with what Hogarth was saying about the previous album; the main producer is shown as Marillion, with Wilson co-credited. The next album, as I mentioned, would be totally fan-funded and continue their progress towards a more commercial sound, but despite that would fail entirely to even enter the charts, as did this one.

But then, when have Marillion ever been about charting the single? ;)

And so we come to what I like to think of as Marillion's Abacab, their most commercial and poppy sounding album, and one on which they strove to do almost away with the progressive rock influence that had stubbornly clung on to their music for the past decade, despite their attempts to move in new directions. I have mixed feelings about this album. I do like it, but it's not top high on my list, and I feel that Marillion almost gave the finger to the fans, if not consciously then certainly subconsciously. They seemed to be saying “there's more to us than a progressive rock band or a Genesis clone”, but they had already proven this with the release of by this point eleven fine albums, some of them real classics. Why they felt the need to turn away from prog rock in the sort of manner that many heavy metal bands would at some point thrust their metaphorical hands in their equally metaphorical pockets, sulk and mumble that they weren't a heavy metal band, is kind of beyond me.

Steve Hogarth did say at one point “that's your label, not ours” when referring to prog rock, but with the greatest respect to him, he wasn't there when Fish and the lads were building their reputation, their success and their fanbase on progressive rock, and nobody said then that they were something else. Perhaps it was okay when they were in the vanguard of a new revival, but as progressive rock began to slide somewhat back into the shadows and fall out of favour again, the word may have become tainted for Hogarth and the band. But they should all remember that it was from one of Marillion's most proggy records, and indeed their most successful ever, that their biggest hit singles and the one they will always be remembered for and linked with came. It just strikes me as something of a slap in the face to be told “Marillion don't consider themselves prog.” I know every band has to develop and nobody wants to stagnate and stand still, but you still need to remember where you came from.

Which is something that, largely, I believe Marillion forgot on this one.
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Anoraknophobia (2001)

(Note: if anyone cares enough to wonder why I've given this album a "Love" rating overall, when I go on to bitch so much about it below, well, what do you expect? I'm a Marillion fanboy! Even their worst album I consider to be better than some by other bands. With one possible exception...)

For a band so savvy about their self-image, marketing and branding, Marillion made two huge mistakes I believe here, music aside. Out of nowhere, so far as I can see, they acquired a mascot, a logo, a symbol for their music. Here he is, standing with all his mates on the front of the album, and they call him Barry. What Barry has to do with Marillion is anyone's guess. From 1982 to 1987 they relied on the Jester as a sort of trademark figure, then for a few albums (well, one) they retained the Marillion logo before ditching that. Fair enough I guess, you're starting out somewhat afresh and you don't want to be associated with the trappings of the past. Move on. But not only did Barry only appear on this one album and never again --- and never be associated, as far as I know, with the brand after that --- he also bears a rather striking resemblance to Kenny from South Park, doesn't he?

So much so, that when I brought the album into work one day and someone saw the CD they thought it was a disc of South Park tunes. When I told them it was Marillion, I was greeted with the inevitable “who?” and I didn't even bother to mention “Kayleigh”. I wasn't surprised nobody knew who they were. I wasn't surprised that they thought the character was Kenny. What I was surprised by was how the resemblance to an already-established cult figure could go unnoticed by Marillion, and also how, to some degree, Trey and his buddy didn't sue them for ripping off their copyrighted work. I guess they dodged that bullet.

But using “Barry” as their new mascot confused me. Who the fuck was this guy? Did he figure in a song on the album? No. Was he your guide around the artwork inside? No. Was he in the videos? I don't know, but I'm gonna say no. Was there anyone in Marillion called Barry? No. So where the fuck did he come from? I suppose as he's technically wearing an anorak on the sleeve (though it's really more of a duffle coat) that might go some way towards tying in with the figure. I'm sure there's some explanation for him on the Marillion website somewhere, but it's been revamped and I think they're as anxious to forget old Barry as I certainly was from the moment I saw him. I didn't like him, I didn't respond to him and I didn't identify with him. So before I had even heard any music I was already in a bad frame of mind vis a vis this album.

Did it turn out to be as bad as I thought it might be? Well, yes and no. It's not the worst Marillion album, but it is a close second. Again there's a lot of the attempt to ditch not only prog music but prog themes, with more mundane, earthy concepts, which I'll get into in due course. IN the press release to accompany the album, and to try of course to further distance themselves from the idea of being a progressive rock band, or at least only a progressive rock band, Marillion challenged reviewers to write their articles using none of the following words: Progressive rock. Genesis. Fish. Concept album. Dinosaurs. Predictable. Heavy Metal. I will now try to tackle each one of these in relation to this album. Here goes:

Progressive rock: despite Marillion's attempt to betray or abandon the core sound and the principles on which their music was founded, there is some progressive rock in here, but less than in the previous outing.

Genesis: Like the band they have been compared to for at this point twenty years, Marillion have followed Genesis and created their own Abacab

Fish: Fish would have hated this, and were he still with Marillion it's very doubtful they would have gone in this direction.

Concept Album: This is not a concept album.

Dinosaurs: Dinosaurs are cool, and I am looking forward to Jurassic World

Heavy Metal: (?) Marillion never were, never could be and never will be even spoken of in the same breath as the words Heavy Metal.

Predictable: It was predictable this album would sell very poorly, despite the pre-orders.

So, that's that then. On with the review.

It starts off very promisingly, with a lovely progressive rock style sad piano intro from Kelly, then Rothery's guitar kicks in and we're kind of in “A Legacy” territory, with another uptempo rocker. “Between you and me” is very much a jangly, guitar-driven song, and anyone who thought this might be a return to prog rock is generally disappointed here, although this is by no means a bad song. I actually really like it; it's just that it continues the trend Marillion were pursuing around this time away from what I regarded as their core sound, trying to appeal to a more commercial, radio-friendly market, and after seven albums of this, with some notable exceptions, it should have been clear this direction was leading them nowhere.

The song changes in the middle on a slow guitar and piano with what could be violins or cellos, probably synth-created, and it does contain one of my favourite lines on the album in ”Feeling like a kid/ Swinging on Heaven's gate/ With no God to complain/ Or point the finger of blame”. It then slides back into the fast guitar melody and continues more or less that way to the end, with some fine organ being added by Kelly, and ending on a sprightly little solo from Rothery. I actually like “Quartz” a whole lot more. It has a deeper progressive feel about it, starting on a very sleazy, jazzy bass line and slow, measured percussion before the vocal comes in, the song being a depiction of the vast differences between two people, enshrined in the lines ”I'm clockwork and you're quartz”. Very clever. Nice Genesisesque (sorry guys but it is) slow rising synth line underpinning the melody, reminds me of that band's self-titled brief return to form in 1983.

After driving the previous song, Steve Rothery is a little more restrained in his guitar histrionics here, sort of emulating Andy Summers on “Walking on the moon”, with the track mostly riding on Trewavas's almost mesmerising bass and Kelly's keyboard flourishes. Here though in a very inadvisable move Hogarth decides to, um, rap. Yeah. It does not end well. Still, it introduces a sublime little guitar passage with some again very Genesis keyboards from Mark. Also some very passionate and achingly yearning vocals from our man Steve. A whole lot better, even given the godawful rap. What were they thinking?

Things continue to improve with “Map of the world”, which, although it hasn't got a prog bone in its body, is still a very decent rock song, taking again a more earthy approach to the lyrics, as we listen to the plans of a girl to save up her money and go around the world, seeing all the places she has never seen before. A far cry from Fish's anti-heroine in “Chelsea Monday”, some twenty years previous! Another really nice strings accompaniment from Kelly, but again the song exists on the guitar of Steve Rothery. Some good lines: ”The lights of the city/ Pushin' a good time/ Are asking her out tonight”. Ultimately though the song is a little straightforward and again you could hear any rock band singing it; it just hasn't got the special Marillion touch about it that I tend to look for from their music.

So far, so not so bad. Now we get one of the absolute standouts, as the first ballad, but so much more than that, hits in the shape of “When I meet God”. Opening on a soft orchestral style line with sharp yet gentle guitar as Hogarth asks ”If the bottle is no solution/ Why does it feel so warm?/ And if that girl is no solution/ Why did she feel so warm?” It's a desperate plea for there to be something, someone, anything to make sense of this world, as he promises ”When I meet God/ I'm gonna ask her/ What makes her cry?/ What makes her laugh?” and asks ”Why do the gods/ Sit back and watch/ So many lost/ What kind of mother/ Leaves a child in the traffic/ Turning tricks in the dark?”

It's a beautiful, fragile, stark and heartbreaking song with its open honesty and its raw emotion, and possibly one of the greatest accomplishments of the post-Fish era. It's really that good. It gets me every time, especially the newsclips that fade out over the end, one of the discovery of the body of Sarah Payne, another of the crash of Concorde. Had they made this album a few months later, no doubt 9/11 would have been one of those clips. A beautiful midsection is driven by soft guitar and a voice saying “Don't do that/ Stay in”. It's something of a slight return to form for Marillion, the song one of the three epics on the album, edging over the nine-minute mark.

Sadly, after that it really takes a nose dive, only slightly rescued by the penultimate track. “The fruit of the wild rose” does nothing for me, with its slow bluesy/funky guitar and its seventies organ. There's nothing really wrong with it I guess, I just have never liked it. The construction of the song seems a little off to me. What the hell would I know? True. But if there's one track on this album I really don't like then this is it. I particularly hate the way it ends. “Separated out” has a lot more balls, though it opens with a pretty disturbing clip from one of those movies about carnival freaks, and indeed ends with another. It's a hard-rocking guitar track, though honestly what it's about I have no idea, unless it's simply the idea of being alienated because you're different. It certainly has a lot of energy and Kelly gives it his all on the synth, though he does rob a descending riff from “Light my fire”. The vocal I feel could be stronger, and the chant ”We accept her/ One of us! One of us!/ Gooble gobble!” (or something) is just weird and offputting to me.

Making a valiant effort to save the album, as I said, “This is the 21st century” brings back in those trip-hop influences we first heard in “House” on the previous album, with a nice whistling keyboard line and a dark guitar sound that really suits the track. It's slow, but I wouldn't call it a ballad: the melody is far too ominous and dramatic for that, and the lyric concerns the woes of the world, as Hogarth sings ”A wise man once said/ That everything could be explained/ With mathematics” and ”The universe demystified/ Chemicals for gods”. There's a real shimmering synth line winding through the melody, echoey and hollow sounding, which gives it a kind of ethereal feel. Hogarth's vocal is really up to snuff here as he wails ”I cried 'What's it all about?'/ And she kissed my hair/ She said 'There, there...'”

It's by far the longest song on the album at just over eleven minutes and in ways I hear snatches of “Out of the blue” from Afraid of Sunlight here in places. Great extended instrumental ending, but then it all comes crashing down with a bang as they close with the distinctly sub-par “If my heart were a ball it would roll uphill”. What? I have seriously tried several times to listen to this song but I still couldn't tell you how it goes. I'm just bored by it. Okay, so there's a powerful guitar opening with strong percussion in a sort of slow blues/boogie rhythm and an impressive rising vocal from Hogarth, but it's just never impressed me as a song, and as a closer it's weak and limpwristed and does nothing for the album, which seriously already needs all the help it can get. I do like the idea that they throw in the line ”She was only dreaming” which attends the fadeout of “Chelsea Monday” on Script for a Jester's Tear (never noticed that before; see? I told you I couldn't listen to the song all the way through) and a sort of dark synth with a military rolling beat finishes the song off as Hogarth becomes a parody of Michael Hutchence or something. Again, it ends badly and leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth.

TRACKLISTING AND RATING

1. Between you and me
2. Quartz
3. Map of the world
4. When I meet God
5. The fruit of the wild rose
6. Separated out
7. This is the 21st century
8. If my heart were a ball it would roll uphill

I feel that here, Marillion kind of reached their creative nadir. No, that's completely unfair. This is not a terrible album by any means. But it does contain probably the least amount of tracks per album that I enjoyed, with quite a lot of what I would have to regard as filler, and that's not normal procedure for a Marillion album. It struggles to maintain my interest as it goes along; starts well, dips rather badly, recovers partially and then drops over a cliff. It's unfortunate that they didn't switch the last two tracks, as if the last song I had heard listening to this had been “This is the 21st century” I might have been better disposed towards forgiving some of the sub-par material here. But you basically (or I do anyway) tend to judge an album, initially anyway, on its closing track as this is the one you will be humming to yourself afterwards, and I can't even hum “If my heart were a ball if would roll uphill”.

This album could have been great if three tracks had been left off and one or two other better ones added. As it is, the bad tends to drag down the good, and there really isn't enough excellent material to countermand that. They had stated at the release of the album that they wanted to create something totally different to anything they had written before, and they certainly did. Unfortunately, it seems to me that they were just a little too clever this time, and kind of outsmarted themselves.

Oh, and fuck Barry. And they did. He never again appeared on any Marillion sleeve or remained connected with the band, from what I saw. Good riddance to the little cunt.

Perhaps oddly, this will be the last in the discography. It's not their last album, but it's followed by Somewhere else which I reviewed already here Somewhere Else , then Happiness is the road, one of the first albums I ever reviewed, you can read that here Happiness is the Road. Less is more was released in 2009, and no I haven't reviewed that (or indeed, if I'm honest, listened to it) but as it's a collection of acoustic covers of some of their material I feel there would probably be little I could say about it, having already covered the songs on their various albums. Their final album to date, 2012's Sounds that can't be made has been extensively reviewed by me of course, and it's available here Sounds That Can't Be Made.

So this then is in fact the last Marillion album I'll be reviewing.
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Marbles (2004)

The album came in single and double-disc formats, and though I purchased the latter I was intending to review the former, due to one song on this which I absolutely hate. But if I do that, I miss out on reviewing other songs I really like, which are not on the single edition. So I'll have to stick with doing the double. You'll know the song when I get to it, I can assure you.

It's not this one though. There's a big thick bass and a sort of ominous moaning guitar to introduce “The Invisible Man”, a laconic vocal from Hogarth perhaps giving the image of someone who has lost his place in the world, in society. There's a lot of desperation in the lyric, and it seems to confirm a man who has lost his lover, possibly died, and has to watch her with someone else, powerless to do anything about it. Maybe he has literally become invisible, possibly though the removal of the affection of his lover? Hard to say. But it's a good opener, and a very long one, at over thirteen minutes. Again, perhaps Brave to start an album off on such an epic, but I think at this stage Marillion know the kind of people who are going to buy their albums; they're not courting the casual, pop-chart-obsessed kids, nor the impulse purchaser. Anyone who wants this album is a true fan and will forgive, even be perhaps expecting this kind of indulgence.

In fairness, it's not just that length to fill up time; the song goes through some changes along the way as the title character relates his story, getting more and more desperate as it proceeds, and at the end just seems to fade away. Some really expressive guitar work from Steve Rothery, as Mark Kelly's swirling synths flow all around him, like smoke or mist. Halfway through it slows down to almost a crawl then comes thundering back in on Ian Mosley's steam-engine drumming and Pete Trewavas's steady bass which began the track. You can almost feel the invisible man's heart quickening, beating faster and more panicky as he realises nobody can see him, accompanied by keys from Kelly which mirror Genesis's classic “Watcher of the skies” from thirty years ago. A really nice expressive guitar solo from Rothery now as we head into the final two minutes, and then Kelly takes the tune on Cavesque piano before we move into the big finish.

This album contains four short tracks labelled “Marbles I-IV”, which seem to look back to Hogarth's childhood, much as he did on the title track to This Strange Engine. Each of these lasts for no more than two minutes, and the first one, “Marbles I” is a nice piano-driven piece with a short lyric about, well, losing marbles, before we head into “Genie”, which has a nice almost nursery-rhyme sort of rhythm (though why the lyric is ”I let the genie out of the box” rather than the bottle, the traditional vessel genii are meant to be found in, I don't know) and seems to address the choices we make in our lives, and the reasons we make, or don't make decisions. It has a really nice melody, but to be completely fair it can't hold a candle to some of the standouts on the album, one of which is next.

“Fantastic place” opens on a soft piano line joined by some lovely guitar, and forms the first ballad on the album. There's a lot of Afraid of Sunlight here I feel, and it's very definitely built on the post-Fish sound, with a really laidback, relaxed theme, and the desire just to leave everything behind and go somewhere where you don't have to worry about anything, where there is no pressure, no responsibility, no work, no decisions to be made. Sure we've all felt like that from time to time. A really orchestral keyboard line leads the song, with Rothery's contributions more minimal really until near the end, when he lays down a really nice passage to take the song out. Great as that song is, it's actually followed by one as good, or better, as we get “The only unforgivable thing”, with a very abstract lyric but a lovely rolling melody again, this time driven on Rothery's sublime guitar work, backed up by fine organ from Kelly.

It's in fact a second ballad in a row, and gives Hogarth a chance to really put the passion into his vocal that he can, and he does not disappoint. The song has no real chorus, just verse after verse, and each of these begins with the title. It mostly maintains the same melody structure throughout, and yet manages to be one of the absolute standouts on the album. It leads into “Marbles II”, which picks up the story from the first part on a rolling little piano line as Hogarth talks about the marbles collection he had as a child. Bit more uptempo this time, and then we hit that goddamn track.

“Ocean cloud” drives me mad. Not only is it terrible, it's almost eighteen minutes long! Now, I'm just going to exercise my veto here and not listen to it or describe it. I see no reason why I should waste just short of twenty minutes talking about and listening to a song I completely despise. It just does my head in. So on we go. We're now on disc two and this opens with “Marbles III”, which again is piano driven, but in quite a different way. A soft, swaying kind of rhythm and quite frankly a lyric I do not pretend to understand. For me, after that, the album dips slightly, with “The damage” sounding to me too much like a George Harrison song, with extra Jeff Lynne for good measure. It's just not one I like, and it recycles lyrics from “The Genie”, which I feel is lazy, unless there's meant to be a link between the two, which is something I have yet to figure out. It is the first time Marillion really rock out on this album (the awful “Ocean cloud” excepted; we're pretending that doesn't exist) but I really feel it's a letdown after what has so far been a really great run. There's a kind of acoustic REM feel to “Don't hurt yourself”, and again it's not one of my favourites, but it is a lot better than the previous track.

The next one actually became their first hit single in nearly twenty years, as “You're gone” hit number seven in the charts. Actually, once again Marillion shot themselves in the foot vis a vis the album charting. Having learned nothing from including a sticker with the previous album and thereby disqualifying it from chart inclusion, they did the same this time, so that even though the sales of Marbles were enough to lift it into the top thirty, it could not be counted because of the damn stickers. Again. Jesus guys! Get it together, huh? The song? Oh yeah it's okay but it's kind of like something off Holidays in Eden and I can't see how it was such a big hit. Not begrudging them the success of course, but there are tracks here which would have make so much better singles. But there you go.

Another ballad comes next, and there's a sort of flashback to “Forgotten sons”, as we hear a radio being tuned, various stations coming and going before the listener settles for the sound of Steve Hogarth singing, and “Angelina” indeed concerns a female radio presenter, who seems to be something of a sex symbol as Hogarth remarks ”Get off on Angelina /Lonely man's best friend.” The song has a lovely laidback blues feel which I feel owes a lot to Dire Straits in the guitar work, with some shimmering and swirling keys floating around, and really gives you the idea of just kicking back and listening to late night radio. I would say the best ballad on the album, but it's a close run thing. There seem to be female vocals but they're not credited so I have no idea who is guesting. Some really beautiful laidback guitar here for certain.

That leads us to “Drilling holes”, which just provides Hogarth with some great opportunities for clever wordplay, as in the first line, ”A man came to drill some holes in the afternoon/ And by the evening, most of the afternoon was gone”. It's hard not to see a Beatles influence here, circa Sgt Peppers, and the song has a nice sort of psychedelic rhythm and melody to it, with Hogarth more or less shouting the lyric over the music, though it breaks down into some really nice instrumental passages along the way. At the end it seems to be just more or less a celebration of being able to be with your friends in “unimportant moments” that you remember long after they've gone. “Marbles IV” completes the quartet with shortest of the four, again piano driven with some nice guitar, and takes us to the closer.

“Neverland” is another epic, clocking in at over twelve minutes, which I think makes this the first Marillion album to begin and end with tracks over ten minutes each. It opens with a sweeping strings synth and a soft vocal which then dovetails with a lovely slow piano, percussion pounding in then as Hogarth seems to take the persona of Peter Pan (hence the title) and proceeds to adult-up the tale, while at the same time creating one of the best and most enduring of his songs, and surely a favourite among the Marillion camp for years to come. Some aching guitar work from Rothery, driving the final section of the song, as Hogarth takes the odd step of stretching out each line of the verse, repeating it in an echo, so that you get ”Wen-Wen-Wen-Wen-Wendy, Stand-stand-standing in the kitch-kitch-kitchen..” etc. It's very effective and a great way to close the song, with some lovely Fish-era keyboard work too from Kelly. A superb closer to a really excellent album.

TRACKLISTING AND RATING

DISC ONE
1. The invisible man
2. Marbles I
3. Genie
4. Fantastic place
5. The only unforgivable thing
6. Marbles II
7. Ocean cloud

DISC TWO
1. Marbles III
2. The damage
3. Don't hurt yourself
4. You're gone
5. Angelina
6. Drilling holes
7. Marbles IV
8. Neverland

This was pretty much the album that restored my faith in the band after the somewhat overly commercial Anoraknophobia, then they went and released Somewhere else three years later and my faith was again tested. Since then it's been a bit of a struggle, but I think they've managed to steady the ship and the last few releases have certainly shown a band returning to the top of their game. This however in one way marked the pinnacle of a period that began with Brave and lasted right up to about the time Marillion.com was released.

So that's the end of our Marillion discography. If you're one of the two people who've been reading it I hope you enjoyed it, and that I managed to get across just why I love this band so much. If you've been patiently waiting for me to get this out of my system so I can get back to other entries in this journal, then your wish has been granted, as we'll be moving in a totally different direction for the next entry.

Thanks for sticking with me, if you did, and don't forget there's still the Genesis discography to come later in the year. Who groaned? Frownland, is that you?

And God said... Let there be light!
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Then Satan said: "Fuck that! Let there be METAL!"
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And so it was, evermore...
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Three Days To Go....

Let the Comic Sans Holocaust commence.

(From the writings of Eldritch the Incomprehensible, High Wizard and Chief Scribe to His Imperial Majesty, Incepticus The Optical Illusion. Believed written around 145 AD (After Dinner)...

Coming down from the hills like a great black cloud
With guitars, drums and keyboards, voices strong and proud;
Solos scorching the air, Pounding music everywhere
With leather jackets and long matted hair
They’re pouring from out of their lair --

Look out! Hoorah!

Feel the ground shake beneath your feet
And tremble if you’re a poser!
Hear the riffs and feel the beat
As the metal hordes come closer!
Raise your fist and hold it high!
You’re among friends: don’t be shy
And let out a blood-chilling cry:
You know Metal cannot die!

Raise a mighty shout! Huzzah!

For this is the time you have waited to see
When all other music from here will flee
It’s the first of October, it could only be
The onset of
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It’s what it’s all about! Yee-Hah!

My apologies. It’s stupid I know but Health and Safety insist I run this warning so here goes…


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And with that, may I bid you welcome my friends, welcome! It’s a free bar and we’ve paid off the cops so there’ll be no complaints from the neighbours. Hell, half of you ARE the neighbours! You know, when I was contemplating getting this researched and written, around July or so, I began to think on the enormity of the work involved and wondered was it worth it, should I perhaps just leave it at the two specials and concentrate on other things? Was it going to be too much hassle, too much work, too much effort for too little reward?

Yeah. Then I tore off my skirt and grew a pair of balls and said to myself “Fuck you Troll! Man up, you pathetic wimp!” And so I did. I decided though as you’ve all realised to take a month off from the forum, just to allow me to really focus my attentions on this, and quite frankly I was surprised by how much I got done over that period. Initially, it was a case of “will I have enough to fill 31 days?” Now it’s very much a case of “How do I fit all this into just 31 days?” What a difference taking a break makes, huh?

Last year I believe I boasted that this Metal Month would be the best yet, and I think I can say without fear of contradiction and with a small sense of pride that I have kept that promise, reached that target and even way overshot it. This year, we have so much Metal even you diehard Metalheads may grow tired of it. Nah, not really: who could ever get tired of Metal? But I feel confident that there is something here for everyone, and I’ve been very careful, as ever, not to only feature the music I like, but to step beyond my own preset boundaries and venture into areas I do not normally frequent, and to try out subgenres that are not usually my bag. But that after all is what I try to make Metal Month be all about. If I only featured power metal, prog metal and Iron Maiden, a lot of you would shake your heads and say, what’s the point? No black, no thrash, no death metal? Metal Month my arse. Or ass, if you’re American as most of you are.

And you’d be right. So although I will by no means ever manage to cover every subgenre, either in this Metal Month or future ones, I do and will try my best to make it as all-inclusive a feature as possible. Your help here is invaluable, as you have shown me bands I never knew existed, subgenres that are completely new to me, and helped me explore music I would never really have attempted to before. Through the Members’ Top Tens and Don’t Listen to That --- Listen to This! features, I have come across some incredible (and some not so incredible) music and been turned on to some great bands. More importantly, I’ve tried to make sure that I cover everyone’s tastes, or as far as I can anyway.

So thank you to those who helped me create this through their contributions and suggestions. You’ll all be properly credited and thanked in the “liner notes” when this wraps up on October 31. Right now, before we get started, I’d like to introduce a new concept I’m starting this year, which I’m calling

Trollheart’s Hall of Heavy Metal Heroes
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All this is, basically, is my attempt to give back to and thank those who have made the effort to comment in or contribute to Metal Month in so far its third year, It’s your chance to earn your seat in the Hallowed Hall of Metal Month by my side. Those who earn higher places through their contributions will be awarded titles, land and riches. Except for land and riches. Your names will then be recorded every future Metal Month, and at the end of this, as collaborators and partners in the enterprise. Some have already earned their place through their work in previous years, and these I will list shortly. For now, I just want to list the various honours.

At the very top of the tree, second only to me and sitting on my right hand side is the Champion Knight. There is only one of them and he is my second in command. Note: I say “he” not only because I don’t think there are any recorded instances of a female knight (other than in Game of Thrones) but because over the last two years I have seen exactly zero input into or interest in Metal Month by females here. But that can change, and if it is to, then you ladies need to be the ones to change it. If you earn your title, I have absolutely no objection to female Knights, and will not have a problem awarding such honours.

Next down are the Senior Knights, of which there can be only four at any one time. These are followed by Knights (eight only) and then Junior Knights, whose numbers are not limited, and finally there are the Squires, who are the lowest in the pecking order, but still several cuts above serfs and peasants.

How do you go about aquiring these honours? Well, I don’t want to bore those who are not interested, so I’ve linked to the rules for application here. If you’re interested then you’ll know what to do.


This year we have even more sections for you, more bands and artistes, and of course my usual quirky brand of humour (which is to say, robbed from the work of others) sprinkled throughout these coming thirty-one days. Here’s a list of what you can expect this year:

FEATURED ARTISTE: As mentioned early last year (perhaps even during Metal Month II, if I recall) this time out we’re checking out the entire discography (studio only, as ever) of one of the oldest and most respected Metal bands, Judas Priest.

FRESHLY FORGED: Looking at and reviewing the best new Metal albums to hit the shelves this year.

THE INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE OF METAL: This year we’re concentrating on the Metal emanating from Israel, Iran, Syria and Bosnia.

THE METAL THAT MADE ME: More of the albums I enjoyed, or at least listened to, in my youth, which got me into this music.

HEAVY METAL HONEYZ: Checking out the ladies in Metal

DON’T LISTEN TO THAT --- LISTEN TO THIS! More of the albums you have suggested I should give a chance to.

WHAT’S THAT ALL ABOUT? This year it’s Atmospheric Black Metal that goes under the microscope

METAL GOES TO THE MOVIES: Metal songs which have been used in movie soundtracks

THE BATLORD’S TORTURE CHAMBER: Batty is back to try to ruin my life with four albums he considers so awful I’ll just fall apart. We’ll see.

MEMBERS’ TOP TEN: This year it’s the turn of Frownland, Ninetales and Wpnfire to have their top ten albums scrutinised under my unforgiving (to say nothing of blinking) gaze

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE: Metal sometimes isn't fussy about who it goes to bed with and can lie down with some mighty strange partners. See the weird collaborations I’ve come across in my research

TRIPLE BOXSET: Three more albums from … well, just wait and see!

ALL YOU NEED IS...METAL? Metal covers of Beatles songs

Also two very special Guest Reviewers, The Meat Grinder, more compilation albums and a whole lot of other stuff you can’t even begin to guess at!

One thing is for sure: it’s gonna be a busy month, especially for you poor mods (sorry guys!) --- expect a minimum of FOUR updates EVERY DAY, possibly even five. There is a LOT to get through. As ever, feel free to comment, disagree, laugh at, agree with, correct or otherwise interact with me during this annual celebration of all things Metal. It’s your participation and feedback that makes this worthwhile, and keeps me doing it year after year. So let me know if you like/don’t like something, and I’m always open to suggestions (that’s actually anatomically impossible, Batty!) and ideas.

And now, finally, with no further ado, let me throw the gates wide and invite you in!
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Well, why not kick Metal Month III off the same way began Metal Month II, by checking out one of the new releases of this year, in the section I like to call
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(Note: the alliteration ends this year: for Metal Month IV I'll obviously be dropping the second half of this section's title, so it will become simply “Freshly Forged”.)

2015, like every other year, has been a bumper one for new metal releases. While I can't review every album reviewed this year (or at least, up to now) I do intend to, as usual, have a look at a hopefully varied selection. In a change to last year's format though, I'm streamlining it a little more. This year, and every subsequent year, I'll be going through the year chronologically, taking two albums from each month, up to obviously only October.

So, our first selection from January comes from these guys:
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Secret Garden --- Angra --- 2015 (Edel)

Introduction: This one just barely makes it really, having been released in January, though Japan saw it first, in December of 2014. I featured Angra last year under the Brazilian portion of The International Language of Metal, but I have not heard many of their albums, so whether this is a big departure from their last one or not I don't know. I know Angra had a rebirth of sorts with 2001's appropriately-titled Rebirth, but what has happened since then is unknown to me. I can tell you that longtime vocalist Edu Falaschi is gone, replaced by the brilliantly-named Fabio Lione, so this is his debut for the Brazilian power metal band.

Track-by-track

Newborn me: Sort of a cinematic, orchestral intro then a big powerful burst of sound, hard guitars and sort of electronic sounds. Like the new singer, good powerful voice with that operatic quality you usually get in power metal. Some lovely Classical or Spanish guitar there later on before the electric kicks back in.

Black hearted soul: Starts off with a chanting choir and then fires off on a fast guitar run. Good vocal gymnastics from Lione.

Final light: More progressive metal than power, very dramatic, slower than the previous tracks but with a lot of punch and energy. Really nice guitar solo.

Storm of emotions: First ballad, nice acoustic guitar and it's good to hear that our Fabio can dial it back when required and still sound really good. Kind of Bon Joviesque in the chorus I feel. Really like this.

Synchronicity II: Yeah you read that right, the Police track. I don't know it that well so I can't say how well Angra cover it, however I do find it odd that this is listed as a bonus track, but is halfway through the album. Weird. Anyway, if you know the song you know what to expect. For me it's a decent rocker but a little below par.

Violet sky: It's a powerful, dramatic song. I just don't really feel too interested or invested in it and it's over before I can really evaluate it.

Secret Garden: The title track features Epica's Simone Simons on vocals, and it's very progressive/goth metal, with heavy strings presence on the keys and a slow, sort of swaying rhythm. Reminds me of Kamelot or her own band. Some lovely piano.

Upper levels: Odd kind of electronic almost funky feel to this, mostly due to the basswork of Felipe Andreoli, but it gets going nicely on a hammering guitar from Rafe Bittencourt. Oddly, Lione sounds like Dio on this track in places. Again, Angra straddle the bridge between progressive and power metal, and this is far closer to the former, with almost way too much funk/jazz for my liking. Ugh. Almost reminiscent of the overindulgences that brought progressive rock crashing down under the weight of its own collective ego in the late seventies.

Crushing room: Another guest vocalist as ex-Warlock frontwoman Doro Pesch steps in front of the mike, and she has certainly a strong voice, very different to Simons. A powerful song, again quite dramatic and more in the prog metal vein. More lonely piano helps to create a sense of bleakness and despair that fits in with the title of the song.

Perfect symmetry: This, on the other hand, is pure power metal, rocketing along on squealing keys and snarling guitars. Very good and dramatic orchestral instrumental section.

Silent call: This is gorgeous. Lovely ballad to end the album.

Conclusion: Not so much a power metal album as one that crosses over from that to prog metal and back, and also pulls in some electronic and even funk influences on the way. An interesting album, but I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to check it out again.

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This year I'm doing something a little different. Last time I picked random countries to explore from a Metal point of view. After thinking about it for a while, this year I want to choose countries that are united by the one common denominator. Some may say this is in poor taste but I assure you it's not: nevertheless, the theme linking these four countries is war and conflict. Each of them has been, or is currently being, torn apart by a vicious war that makes it hard to believe there is anywhere for music, never mind Metal, to survive, and yet, across these four similar yet very different lands, the united and unsilenceable voice of Heavy Metal rings out, defying the tyrants, the suicide bombers, the missiles and rockets, and proving that, friend or enemy, religion or politics or indeed even language itself is no barrier to those who just want to rock out and have a fuckin' good time!

The countries this year, then, are Iran, Syria, Bosnia and Hertzogovenia, and Israel/Palestine. I choose the last two as one entity for obvious reasons: they occupy the same country, one struggling for a homeland while the other is determined to keep them forever subservient and second-class, and surely there could be no more defined dividing line than that? Despite, or perhaps even because of that, bands from each country survive and flourish, and two from opposite sides have even joined forces, of which more later. Then of course there's Iran, whose rulers want nothing more than to wipe Israel off the map, and who are a constant threat to world security, to say nothing of a tight and hardline theocracy. When your very music is all but outlawed in your home country, how do you survive? And yet, Metal is waving its flag and punching its fist in Iran just as it is everywhere.

We're all aware of the awful conflict that tore Yugoslavia apart in the eighties and resulted in no less than seven new countries being born, one of which has continued to suffer and remained, for a long time, the “poster child” for ethnic cleansing and genocide. While many of these other newborn countries --- Slovenia, Montenegro, Croatia --- have managed to reinvent themselves and become at least bit-players on the world stage (or at least the European one), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia for short) still shudders to the memories of its past, and struggles to lay to rest the ghost of the atrocities suffered by its people, and to emerge out of the darkness of the war that tore it apart in the 1980s.

And what can you say about Syria? One of the most powerful members of the Arab League, it has stubbornly resisted the wave of change and reform that swept across the Middle East in the wake of what became known as “The Arab Spring”, and under its dictatorial ruler, Assad, has practiced more horrors and war crimes on its citizens than pretty much any country I can think of. Despite the UK Prime Minister's contention, several years ago now, that “Assad will fall, he must fall”, he is still in power and the civil war in Syria rages on, intervention by the West prevented due to its powerful position among the Arab nations, and support of one of the remaining Superpowers.

But we are not here to debate politics, or lament the loss of life and the human cost of these wars, terrible though they may be. I'm not a poltical analyst; I just write about music, and it's that which we are exploring here this year, specifically of course the various Heavy Metal bands who have managed to ply their trade and survive against such a backdrop of despair, chaos and hopelessness. The pickings in general are fairly slim, so I will be taking a look at about four or maybe five bands from each territory, trying to get the best overall flavour as to what is available, so expect anything from Doom to Death and from Prog to Thrash Metal, as I try to sample what's on the menu.
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I suppose it should come as no surprise, given their dour and bleak history, but the overwhelming majority of Metal bands in Bosnia seem to be into Black Metal. That's of course not good news for me, who is no fan of the blackstuff, but it does mean that I can hardly avoid it and will certainly end up dancing with Satan in Sarajevo before this week is through. Before that though, I thought I'd try something a little closer to my own preferences, something that hopefully will not send me screaming to the toilet in terror or banging on the gates of the church to be let in. Maybe.

It's hardly an original name, but one of the problems I came across last year, and which is resurfacing of course this year, is that so many of these bands are unsigned, or of they are, their material is next to impossible to locate. So when I find a band that a) has at least one album and b) I can find that album one way or another, they get the nod. Interestingly, I thought this band would be very hard to separate from the thousands or more instances of the word “apocalypse” on YouTube and Google --- after all, you put in the words “Apocalypse Bosnia” and you get a very upsetting video, let me assure you --- but luckily for me some kind soul has uploaded their entire sole album, track by track, to the Big Y, so I can review it. Who are the band? Glad you asked.
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Igra --- Apocalypse --- 2003 (One Records)

Let's be brutally honest here --- okay, okay! Br00tally honest! Happy? --- I'm unlikely to be able to discover very much about any of these bands, with the exception maybe of the ones from Israel. I just don't see a wealth of information coming across on them on the web, and so the details about each are probably going to be quite sparse. What I can tell you is that Apocalypse (how dull: they didn't even replace the “c” with a “k”...) have been together since 1999, released their demo in 2001 with two tracks, both of which are a single word title, one of which has no vowels (DWV will love that one!) and then put out this, to date their only album, in 2003. They're listed as “active” but you would have to wonder after twelve years if they're likely to release a followup at this stage?

They're a five-piece, with two guitarists and a keyboard player, and are described on my Metal Bible website, Metal-Archives.com (look, it's just easier than typing Encyclopaedia Metallum all the time, all right? And it is the actual name of the site) as “Thrash Metal”, so may be the closest I get to Metal I can actually dig, not that that will stop me. Bosnia is also one of those countries that holds the letters z, v and j in higher estimation than most European ones, as well as adding a few fun accents, umlauts and whatever you're having yourself, just to make it more interesting, so there's going to be a lot of copy-and-pasting here. Just bear with me.

The album of course is all sung in their native language (though whether that's Bosnian, Slavic or what I don't know: it certainly ain't English though!) with titles full of the abovementioned “extras” and more k's, j's and z's than you can shake a stick at. If you had a stick. And wanted to shake it. It only has seven tracks, one of which is an instrumental, and all fall under the six-minute mark, most coming in around three or four. We kick off with “Između života i smrti “, and no, I have no idea what any of this means, but it's a good powerful opening on keys --- almost more progressive than Thrash I would say, at least this track, with a grinding, crunching guitar that runs for nearly a minute before the vocals come in. Dobroslav Slijepčević , who also plays one of the sets of two keyboards, is a decent singer, but nothing special I feel. Good on the keys too, though with Snježana Gnjatić partnering him on the keys it's hard to say who is the better player.

It's powerful and anthemic, but not as fast as I had expected, decent opening though. Good the way it slows down for a dramatic instrumental ending, then we're into “1389 (Heaven or Hell)”, which appears to be in English, as is the title, opening on another big synth solo with a Dickinson-like “Whoa-oh-oh-oh!” in the chorus. Good trundling percussion drives the tune along, courtesy of Stojan Lasica. Good melody in the song but it is very derivative of Maiden. “Svijet iluzije” has more than a touch of Dio in it, more Maiden and a sort of chanted vocal which works well. The guitar solo however does not; sounds like it's all out of tune. Ugh. A bit harder and grindier for “Vječna tajna “, more guitar-driven and a little faster, but it slows down about halfway and the Dio influence is back.

At least the guitarists seem to have it together this time, though the solo is a little Dragonforce for me. Hmm. There's one more English song to go, and it comes in the form of “Crucifixion”, often a favourite subject with Metal bands. It certainly swaggers along nicely with a long instrumental intro, probably the best track on the album, at least this far. The penultimate track then is the only instrumental, and goes by the title of “Sumrak vizantije”, a throaty, bassy synth opening proceedings and takign the piece nearly halfway through, with the sound of cellos or violins (presumably synthesised) joining in before the guitars come fading in and the tune takes off. From a slow, rather balladic piece it becomes a fast hard rocker but never loses its charm throughout. Another standout, and shows what these guys can do when they really try. We close then on the title track, and it's a fast, keyboard-driven rocker which really closes the album well.

TRACKLISTING

1. Između života i smrti
2. 1389 (Heaven or Hell)
3. Svijet iluzije
4. Vječna tajna
5. Crucifixion
6. Sumrak Vizantije
7. Igra

It's certainly not a bad album, but I can see why they're only known (if at all) in their native Bosnia. Given that they have only released, as I mentioned, one album in over fifteen years, the fact that they sound so like every other Metal band from Newcastle to New York is not likely to help their case. They've surely listened to too much Iron Maiden, Saxon and Dio, with other bands like Stratovarius and maybe Angra thrown into the mix, and have not so much based their sound upon those bands but basically copied it, right down to the sudden guitar endings and the choruses.

They're a good band, but to be able to stand out they need some identity of their own, and based on this, their only album, Apocalypse are doomed to remain in the shadows of other, greater bands while opportunity, fame and fortune pass them by.

1. Između života i smrti = Between Live And Death
2. 1389 (Heaven or Hell)
3. Svijet iluzije = Light Of Illusion(s)
4. Vječna tajna = Eternal Mystery
5. Crucifixion
6. Sumrak Vizantije = Byzantine Darkness
7. Igra = The Game

Probably.

Come with me on a journey back to the days when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, when there was no such thing as High Definition TV, when you were lucky if you had a telephone at home (mobile? What's that?) and CDs were yet a dream of the future.

A time when men were real men, women were real women, and small blue furry things from Alpha Centauri were real small blue furry things from Alpha Centauri.

A time when then only way you could hear an album was to buy, or maybe borrow it.

A time before itunes, YouTube and Facebook.

A time when Trollheart was young. Yes, there was such a time.

And in that misted, forgotten, ancient time, I began my affair with Heavy Metal.

Here are some of the albums that got me there.

Everyone has their favourite Black Sabbath album, and while many go for the early Ozzy period --- and with good reason: there are some total classics in there, from the debut to Paranoid, Vol 4 and Master of Reality --- and while I'm not saying this is definitively my own favourite, it is the one on which I first heard Ronnie James Dio (though I think prior to that I had heard his contributions to Rainbow on their compilation double album; it would be a little while yet before I bought Rising and realised what a true star he was) and realised there could be “another” Black Sabbath. I had been used to the dark, doomy, gothic feel of tracks like “Iron man”, “Paranoid”, “War pigs” and of course “Black Sabbath”, and even had We Sold Our Soul for Rock and Roll, which naturally, as it was compiled in 1975, contained only Ozzy releases. I was therefore totally blown away by the progressive direction Sabbath took on this, one of only three albums they ever recorded with the diminutive frontman who would go on to give us albums like Holy Diver and Killing the Dragon, and the different vocal style. It must in that case be very much counted as a very integral part of
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Heaven and Hell --- Black Sabbath --- 1980 (Vertigo)

When I read about this album, it's in a way a minor miracle it was even made. Ozzy had just been fired from the band after leading them for ten years and eight albums, not all of them stellar but the larger percentage certainly were. Bill Ward was going through personal problems including losing both his parents while also battling his growing alcoholism, while Geezer Butler was in the midst of a divorce. Ward would in fact quit the band mid-tour, though he would return, and Butler only appears on the album because he came back to redo the bass parts that had been originally laid down by another bassist. With Martin Birch, who would later go on to become the legendary producer of Iron Maiden, taking control though things settled down, and Tony Iommi, who was basically holding things together prior to the arrival of Dio and even thinking about starting a new band, working closely with Ronnie, the band dynamic slowly returned and the album began to take shape.

It's a much shorter album, only eight tracks in total, and none of the longer epics that characterised some of the earlier albums are in evidence, with the title track being the longest at just under seven minutes, but there is almost no filler and just about every track is gold. It kicks off with “Neon knights”, which demonstrates much of what Ronnie would later form into his own albums, particularly “Stand up and shout” from Holy Diver and “We rock” from The Last in Line. His voice is immediately a focal point for the “new” Sabbath, and the lyrics contain more fantasy-themed and to a degree, lighter, fare, with much of Dio's material centred in the worlds of medieval lore and mythology. Iommi is again on fire, at his very best in some of the solos, and it's a great way to start the album, though by no means the best track.

There's a lot in this song that, reading between the lines, can be seen to, or supposed to be reassurance to the fans who, even before the real age of the internet and mass media, must have known about the departure of Ozzy and the problems the band were going through, and wondered if, after ten years, this could be it? When he sings the line ”Nothing's in the past, it always seems to come again” it certainly sounds like he's saying don't worry, it's not quite business as usual, but we're keeping this ship afloat, as again when he confirms ”Captain's at the helm”. And when he roars ”Cry out to legions of the brave” and ”Ride out, protectors of the realm” you can almost feel his pride and determination to ensure that Sabbath continue, grow and even prosper in the wake of the perhaps shock of Ozzy's leaving.

It's time to slow things down already though, and an acoustic guitar from Iommi opens the ballad “Children of the sea” with a clear, perfect vocal from Dio, who sounds like a minstrel singing in some leafy glade back in the thirteenth century. Suddenly, snarling electric guitar joins thumping percussion as Ward batters his kit, and Butler's big thick bass adds its voice and the song acquires teeth, and if there's a definition of a metal power ballad, this is probably it. The true power of Dio's voice is evident here; you can't quite envisage Ozzy singing this song. There's perhaps a note of self-depracating humour here, a realisation that ”We sailed across the air before we learned to fly/ We thought that it could never end” and there's a nice sort of vocal chorus thing going on too. Iommi's solo comes just at the right time, and ends before it outstays its welcome, taking us back to the acoustic that opened the song as it reprises for the big finish.

There's a nod to the Ozzy era then in “Lady evil”, as Dio sings of a witch in the finest Sabbath tradition, but the music is not dark and doomy, rather uptempo rock and blues. If the album has a weak track --- and I'm not saying it has, not at all --- then I would pick this one. There's just something a little, I don't know, formulaic about it and it doesn't impress me. Which is not to say that it's not a good song, but it's just the rest of the tracks are so great that they make this very good song seem distinctly below par. Even the solo seems a little forced, almost as if Iommi is playing what he thinks he should play, and not what he wants to play. But if this is a weak track, it's the only one, as we run headlong into the easy standout of the album, which also happens to be the title track.

Surely there can't be a metalhead anywhere who doesn't know this song? It's gone on to become one of Sabbath's standards, easily recognisable by its slow, progressive intro running mostly on Geezer Butler's smoky bass, and it conjures up all sorts of images of dark halls and things waiting around corners, or as Pink Floyd would later put it, “hollow laughter in marble halls”. It's a slow, almost threatening, marching beat with a growled vocal from Dio, and flashes of guitar brilliance from Tony Iommi sparking around the edges of the tune like tongues of lightning. It's one of Dio's more philosophical lyrics, with lines like ”The ending is just the beginning/ The closer you get to the meaning/ The sooner you'll know that you're dreaming” and ”The Devil is never a maker/The less that you give you're a taker.” Some very, again, Floyd-like backing vocals with a superb guitar solo before we reach the midpoint and the song undergoes a total transformation, becoming a rocking colossus as it picks up speed on the back of a slowly descending guitar chord.

Flying along, we are treated to an even better Iommi solo before Dio comes in with the last verse, his vocal speed matching the tempo of the song and then leaves Iommi to it as he loses himself in a third solo, each one better than the last. It finally all comes down to earth on another descending chord and into a suitably acoustic ending that fades away.

From there on, Sabbath can do no wrong, as “Wishing well” punches everything up a notch, trundling along with something of “Neon knights” in it, allowing Iommi again to have his head, with at times Lizzyesque fervour, while Ward cracks on with a will, and Butler lays down the basslines with what certainly appears to be pride, despite his personal worries at the time. Another standout comes with “Die young”, which was released as a single. Starting with an atmospheric, spacey synth, it gives way to a rising guitar line from Iommi before it breaks into a mad rush on Ward's thumping drums and Iommi's biting guitars. Dio acquits himself really well here in the vocal, taking complete command of the song as it hurtles along, perhaps echoing an axiom that has been the mission statement of so many teenage rebels: ”Live for today, tomorrow never comes! Die young!”

In the middle, the song slows right down on soft guitar and bass, with sighing keyboard behind it and a gentle vocal from Dio, before it all pumps back up on hard riffs from Tony, a swirling keys passage and punching drums, setting it all back up for the finale, as the band charge to the finish line on Iommi's smouldering frets, the whole thing fading out on another superb solo and bringing in a striding guitar line for “Walk away”, in which I personally hear “Mystery” from Dio's second solo album, which would not be released for another four years. There's a great sense of pumping joy in this song, led as it is by Iommi's growling guitar lines, including a solo that Carlos Santana would be proud of. A big rousing grinder for the final track then, with “Lonely is the word” riding on a powerful ringing riff while Ronnie squeezes every ounce of passion he can out of the song. An almost classical guitar interlude then in the second minute before Iommi kicks it up and smoke starts to pour from the frets as he works his magic. Reminds me of one of my heroes, Rory Gallagher, here. Perhaps interesting that this, the first Sabbath album with him at the helm, opens and closes as most if not all of his Dio albums would, with a fast rocker for the first track and a slower, more dark grinding track for the closer. Coincidence?

TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS

1. Neon knights
2. Children of the sea
3. Lady evil
4. Heaven and Hell
5. Wishing well
6. Die young
7. Walk away
8. Lonely is the word

It probably wouldn't be fair to say that Ronnie James Dio reinvented Black Sabbath on this album --- Tony Iommi did after all write most of the music and even tried out one of the tracks with Ozzy prior to his departure, so it's not like Ronnie came onboard with all these great new songs --- but what cannot be denied is that he injected a new energy, a new purpose and a new sense of direction into a band who, following the disappointing Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die! had been in something of a rut, contemplating their options and considering whether or not the band would even survive. Heaven and Hell didn't quite raise Sabbath's profile --- everyone knew them from the time their debut burst like a wonderful dark cloud over music in 1970 --- but it did update the band's sound, giving them something more of a progressive feel, an edge they would retain throughout most of the rest of their career, and which would help bring in new fans, new converts to their cause, while at the same time avoiding alienating the faithful.

I don't like Dio-era Sabbath. Iommi lost that magical guitar tone of his after Sabatoge and I just lose interest in the band.

By its very nature, metal tends to get associated with some truly bad movies. After all, when they're filming Star Wars VII or the next instalment in the series, they're hardly going to say “I know what we need for the soundtrack: a bitchin' metal tune", now are they? So by default, it would seem almost that the badder the movie (and I don't mean bad in a good way) the more likely there is to be a metal soundtrack, or at least a metal song or two. But hey, you don't have to watch the movies, as I have scoured the net and found the best songs from them, so put your leather biker boots up, crack a can and prepare to rock out as
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It's not really possible to rank them, as to be fair, none of the songs are what you'd call classics, so these are in no order.
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“Dream warriors” by Dokken, taken from the album Back For the Attack, 1987.
Appears in the movie Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, 1987
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There's probably no-one (apart from me) who hasn't seen the Nightmare on Elm Street series, which ran to nine movies and made a star both out of Robert Englund and fledging director Wes Craven. In tribute to the memory of Craven, whose movies brought a whole new meaning to terror for kids in the eighties, we've put this one first, though it's by no means the best song. There's little point in me describing the plot of the movie, but you know the basic idea: Freddie Kruger, madman psychopath, stalks the dreams of teenagers, killing them in various inventive ways. Again. There is some humourous irony in the video, which, featuring Dokken playing, scares the slasher so much that Kruger wakes at the end of the video gasping “What a nightmare!” :laughing:


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“He's back (The man behind the mask)” by Alice Cooper, from the album Constrictor, 1986.
Appears in the movie Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, 1986
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Another series of movies I wouldn't watch in a fit, the slasher genre of movie has proved very successful for about two decades, being surpassed now it seems by gorier, harder, almost torture-porn like the Saw franchise (you don't even need to ask) but back in the eighties this was the movie that resurrected (sorry) the ailing franchise begun with the rampage of crazed killer Jason Voorhees in 1980 by bringing back the believed-dead psycho. In a way, it's poetic too, as Cooper was also believed to be finished, having gone through a stint in rehab with little success of his even surviving it never mind emerging from it, and the song is a triumphant up-yours to those who doubted him. Okay, so the song is a little more eighties synthesiser pop than we would like, but we can forgive him for that: it's fucking Alice!


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“Trick or treat” by Fastway, from the album Trick or Treat, 1986.
Appears in the movie Trick or Treat, 1986.
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So, a little overkill on the album/movie tie-in, but Fastway, formed by ex-Motorhead axeman “Fast” Eddie Clark and UFO's Pete Way, released this as their fourth album following the success (ahem) of the heavy metal exploitation spoof movie of the same name. It features Ozzy as a televangical preacher. I don't think you need to know any more, do you?

So, we're talking 70s-80s? Ireland didn't have phones back then? God, you're a ****ty country.

Pretty much no. When we had to make a call we had to go down to the local public box at the corner. I think we got our first phone in around maybe 1978? There were phones, but not every house had one. Hell, it was the late eighties before video recorders came on the scene! And even then they were mega-expensive...

While this new article may seem a little similar to the "What's that all about?" feature, yet to air, it is in fact quite different. This will be a one-off series looking into one particular aspect of Metal that is perhaps sneered at by some, liked by others, loved by a few and perhaps even there are metalheads out there who are unaware even of the existence of this type of music. So under the banner of
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we're going to have a look at the oft-ridiculed Metal that flies its own flag and doesn't give a curse what anyone else thinks.
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We metalheads sometimes take our subgenres too seriously --- such-and-such is not a metal subgenre, such-and-such is not this subgenre, it's that one, etc --- and even last year I knew when I ran “What's that all about?” that Viking Metal was not strictly speaking a subgenre of metal, but it was fun to explore. This, on the other hand, I know not to be any sort of subgenre, but by Blackbeard's ghost, it's going to be fun to write about!
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Though neither are strictly speaking subgenres of metal, bands who play Viking Metal (as written about by me last year) tend to generally take their subject quite seriously, and why not? It is after all usually their past and their heritage they're singing about, and that demands to be treated with respect and not sent up. Pirate Metal, on the other hand, by its very nature cannot be taken seriously. How can it? It's all about looting, pillaging, sailing the high seas and thumbing your nose at the law; serious subjects when they actually occurred, and piracy was likely to get a man hanged if he were caught, but now the stuff of swashbuckling Hollywood movies and cartoons. The whole idea of piracy --- the irreverent, macho, live for today attitude --- demands to be played with tongue inserted firmly in cheek, and so this is how Pirate Metal bands approach the subject matter. You might as well expect the likes of Tankard to write deep, meaningful lyrics about getting pissed --- it simply does not happen, and we love Tankard and their ilk for this very reason, the fact that they neither take themselves seriously nor expect their fans to.

Not that I'm suggesting in any way that these are joke bands, or that they don't apply themselves with the utmost fervour and dedication to their music. They're metal bands, of course they do. In the same way as some of those we have yet to meet in the “When Worlds Collide” section, coming up later, though poking gentle fun at certain subjects, are competent musicians and professionals, play well and write (or parody) well, so the likes of The Dread Crew of Oddwood, Swashbuckle, Running Wild and Alestorm make sure their songs are well-written, well researched and played, but above all, great fun. That is, so far as I can see, given the somewhat paucity of the information available, the main aim of any Pirate Metal band: to have a good time, and ensure that their fans and those who listen to their music do likewise.

This article, though it will be seriously looking at the phenomenon of Pirate Metal, will have much humour in it, so expect many cliches and pirate phrases. And if ye don't like that, then ye're a scurvy dog and we'll keelhaul ye and send ye to the bottom o' Davy Jones' Locker! So hoist the tops'l, weigh anchor, fix yer eyepatch and check yer cutlass is at yer side, as we're about to sail forth across the majestic sea in search of plunder, booty and fame. And beer. Lots of beer.

Har har, me hearties! Tis t' glory we sail! With a yo ho ho, and perhaps I might venture to add, a bottle of rum into the bargain?

The earliest version of Pirate Metal known to exist is from a band called Running Wild from Germany. Having released two albums with more-or-less black metal influences, at least lyrically, they changed their direction with 1987's Under Jolly Roger, veering more in the way of pirate-themed songs. Although this was not initially planned, as Rolf Kasparek explains in this 1996 interview with Martin Frust:

”That was just a coincidence and not planned at all. When we we're working on Under Jolly Roger some years ago, we were looking for a title song and I thought "Under Jolly Roger" is a really good title. So we had the cover and our stage clothes designed around that. I read a lot of books about the subject and found everything very interesting. It fit together very well and we enhanced the subject with Port Royal. Within a short time it had become our trademark and it's remained with us to this day.” (WebCite query result)

Whether by accident or design then (depending on how much you can believe Kasparek) it can be said that Running Wild created the whole idea of Pirate Metal, and so it is with them we should begin. Though there are relatively few bands involved in the scene, some of them have a reasonably large discography, so it stands to reason I won't be reviewing every album, but like other articles I have written in the past will just select a few albums which I think or hope will best represent their body of work. There is of course no doubt about where we should and will start though.
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Under Jolly Roger --- Running Wild --- 1987 (Noise)

After their Satanic/black metal approach to their first two albums had not seemed to work, or had been pushing them in the wrong direction, Rolf Kasparek decided that having written the title track, the idea was so strong and at the time so new that really, this should be their new image and he wrote the rest of the album around that track, resulting in the first Pirate Metal album. Oddly though, he seems a little confused with the motives of pirates on this first song. He tries to make them out as noble avengers, ”Venerable scoundrels, no blood on our hands/ Our engagements are tough, but only for defence” which apart from being a terrible rhyme is totally inaccurate, as is ”Coming through the waves to free all the captives” --- what captives? Slaves? Men who had been press-ganged into serving on ships? Why? And how would they even know about such ships and who was aboard? Pirates didn't care about such things; they were not the liberators of the high seas. They sailed and fought for gain, for gold and silver and spices, anything they could rob and sell, and they certainly did have blood on their hands, as few if any of the crews of the ships they attacked wouldbe allowed to live and would fight to survive.

Perhaps, these being his first, faltering steps into a brand new style of metal, at least lyrically, Kasparek was feeling his way, testing out the water, to use a very appropriate metaphor, to see if the fans responded to such material. But it's odd: Viking metal bands didn't try to pretend their heroes were just farmers pillaging to survive, or taking land that had been originally theirs, because neither is true. Everyone knows what the Norsemen were; history has made that plain. And in the same way, we know enough about pirates --- both historically and through the less well balanced and informed lens of Hollywood --- to know they were rough, tough men who asked no quarter and certainly gave none, men who lived by their wits and their strength, and who seldom if ever backed down from a fight. They were also unlikely to leave too many survivors once they boarded a ship. So this kind of “pussification” of pirates is both inaccurate and quite annoying. It's kind of like he's saying “We're pirates, but we're not bad pirates. We only do this because we have to”, which is also completely wrong. With a few exceptions, the vast majority of pirates chose that career, and most of them were good enough sailors and captains that, had they wished to, they could have served in any navy or onboard any merchant vessel. They just didn't want to; they preferred the life of a buccaneer.

Be all that as it may, the music is pretty damn sweet. With the sounds of surf, the creak of boards, shouts of “Ship ahoy!” and then cannon firing, we're launched into the world of Pirate Metal with the title track. The vocal of Rolf Kasparek (who I'll just refer to as Rolf from now on) is a good dark throaty gruff kind of snarl, low enough to make you think of pirate captains but still very understandable. The chorus is really anthemic, and I love the way cannon keep firing off through the song. “Under Jolly Roger”, then, introduces the whole concept of pirates (for those who somehow have never heard of them) and it's pretty much a mission statement, with a powerful ending that really befits such a song, and indeed the birth of a whole new way of looking at heavy metal lyrics. To be fair, “Beggar's night” doesn't really fit into the band's new persona, and is not that much related to the pirate theme, unless you take it that the beggars who ”stand up to break our chains” include men who are, or would go on to be, pirates. Really though I don't see it as part of the pirate thing. Good song though.

“Diamonds of the black chest” could qualify on its title alone, and the search for this elusive treasure, but turns out to be a parable about chasing an unattainable goal when, after finally tracking down and opening the legendary chest, he opens it but ”No diamonds but he sees his own face/ A possessed wreck with an empty gaze”. In the same way, “War in the gutter” really harks back to “Beggar's night”, concentrating on the poor and disenfranchised rising up and taking power. Again, it, like the three tracks before it, is a good metal track and rockets along nicely with some fine solos, but there's nothing even vaguely piratey about it. “Raise your fist” --- a cliche if ever I heard one --- steals lines from Lizzy's “The boys are back in town” for the opening words, but comes across as an exhortation to kids to rebel and stand up to authority. In some ways, it's a little worrying as it could be read (though I'm sure it's not intended as such) as a call to those unhinged kids who go to school one day with automatic weapons and another massacre is perpetrated. I'm a little worried at the refrain: ”Come on kids unite and let us feel the flames of rage/ Together we are strong so let's tear up this golden cage/ We shall overcome repression and their straining strings /The shackles have to fall and we will be metallian kings/ Raise your fist!” Um, yeah....

At least “Land of ice” has ships mentioned in its lyric, but it turns out to be a rather ham-fisted morality tale about nuclear weapons which I must admit I don't understand, at least the references to experiments in 1987 and 1999. Has a nice, crushing, ominous feel to it, very slow and almost doomy, with wind and thunder effects and for me betrays a kind of Dio influence. “Raw hide” is a by-the-numbers metal motorbike song, and the album ends on “Merciless game”, a quasi-political song that has exactly zero pirates in it.

TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS

1. Under Jolly Roger
2. Beggar's night
3. Diamonds of the black chest
4. War in the gutter
5. Raise your fist
6. Land of ice
7. Raw ride
8. Merciless game

Okay, in retrospect that probably wasn't the best album to take as our first example of Pirate Metal, as 95% of it has nothing to do with pirates. However, it is I believe still important to have featured, as it shows how, on the next album, Running Wild dropped almost all other lyrical themes and concentrated on the pirate thing. Didn't they? No? Um, well ... It's also, as already mentioned, the very first example of Pirate Metal, and even if the opening and title track is all that concerns the subject, it's still important.

So by the following year Running Wild had grasped the nettle firmly and run with the idea of a pirate themed album, appropriately called Port Royal, after the infamous pirate city of the seventeenth century, former capital of Jamaica. Originally authorised by the Queen to harry the Spanish fleets, these men were called privateers, presumably to distinguish them from “common” pirates, and the most famous of their number was of course Sir Francis Drake. With loose morals and even looser laws, Port Royal was where the privateer fleets berthed, where they had their homes and where, after losing the royal seal of approval when they became too rich and powerful and could have been seen to have threatened the Crown, they reverted to lawless ways and their own code, leading to the legend of the pirates we know today.

Even at this point, the band have not yet thrown their full weight behind the idea of pirates, despite the title and the album cover, and really only three of these tracks can confidently claim to be “pirate songs” (well, four if you include the intro, a fifty-second track that simply tells you you're in Port Royal!) while Running Wild look back to their not-yet-totally-abandoned past, with songs railing against God and religion, and a few about rebellions and revolts a la “Beggar's night” and “War in the gutter”. You can't really blame them: the first of their contemporaries would only form in 2002, a whole fourteen years later, and their real comrades in arms, Alestorm, would only get together two years after that, so for almost a decade and a half Running Wild were flying the Jolly Roger alone, trying to bring the idea of Pirate Metal to the masses, in a time when other bands were concentrating on writing power metal lyrics, or black metal, or getting into thrashier, faster stuff. Generally speaking, in terms of bands, nobody else was interested in jumping aboard ship.

So, still possibly unsure as to whether this new direction was the right one or not (though surely encouraged by record sales, which showed an increase of 200,000 on the previous album, topping out at 1.8 million units --- they must have realised they were doing something right, as both of these albums separately sold more than their first two combined. But it was still a slow process), they released their fourth album, second "Pirate Metal" one, but even so, as I say we have a lot of non-pirate songs on this album.
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Port Royal --- Running Wild --- 1988 (Noise)

As I mentioned already, the opening track is fifty seconds long and consists of nothing more than footsteps walking presumably along a pier and then into an alehouse, from which raucous laughter and sea shanties emit, the unnamed stranger walks up to the bar, obviously lost, and asks “Where am I?” to which a hearty laugh responds telling him he is in Port Royal! We then hammer into the title track, which speaks of the famous port, with a great anthemic chorus. It's driven on fast guitar in very much a power metal vein, and it would have been nice had this introduced a whole album of pirate songs, but “Raging fire”, though you could really stretch it and call it one, is really more a song of revenge and revolt, then they're back to talking about the hypocisy of religion in “Into the arena”.

If anyone thinks I'm glossing over any tracks that aren't relevant to the subject, you're right: I'm not writing this to review albums by these bands, but to look at their contribution to the pseudo-subgenre, so if a track or ten tracks have nothing to do with Pirate Metal, I'm just mentioning them in passing. This should be not taken to mean the songs are not good --- most of them are, very very good indeed --- simply that they don't fall within the criteria under which I'm writing this. I will however draw your attention to “Uaschitschun”, which is based on the disenfranchisement of the Native American, and a very powerful song. Driven by a guitar riff that somehow sounds like a Native American dance or chant, it ends with the famous and moving speech by Chief Seattle to the men who came to try to purchase his lands: “Only when the last tree has been felled, the last fish caught and the last river poisoned will we know that man cannot eat money.”

“Final gates” is a short instrumental, and while “Conquistadores” brings us a little closer to the world of the pirate, it is of course about Cortez and the Spanish explorers who succeeded in wiping out the entire Aztec race in their greed for gold. Although “Blown to kingdom come” sounds like it should be a pirate song, I can't find any references to such in the lyric, and it seems to refer more to knights and warriors, and be a kind of anti-war song of sorts. As indeed is “Warchild”. This kind of stance against war sort of grates with their professed love of pirates; I mean, after all, there's certainly conflict, even war of sorts in the life of a pirate. So far, I am finding Running Wild to be something of a contadiction, but they sure can rock!

“Mutiny” gets us back on the high seas, and tells the story of sailors who have been pushed too far --- ”The water barrels going bad/ Daily a sailor dies...” and the death of one of their shipmates that pushes them over the edge and forces them to take command of the ship on which they serve. It's not a pirate song, but it's about halfway there, and you can imagine that the mutineers, if they get away with it, may indeed go on to become bucanneers and corsairs, but there's nothing ambiguous about “Calico Jack”. The closing track introduces us to the eponymous pirate, and it's their longest song yet, at over eight minutes. With a sort of Maiden feel to parts of it, it opens on an acoustic guitar that then gives way to a powerful electric and takes off into pure power metal territory, rocking and rollicking along. Calico Jack doesn't get away with it though, and we hear the judge tell him that he has been found guilty of piracy and sentence him to be hanged, however the pirate's mocking laughter echoes as he is taken away, swearing he will see the judge again.

Seems he was a real figure, which doesn't really surprise me, as Rolf is known for diligently researching for his songs, and Calico Jack appears to have been the pirate who designed and first flew the skull and crossbones flag, the Jolly Roger. However I was surprised to see that Rolf had him sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, which as far as I know was a punishment reserved for traitors to the Crown, and I don't think piracy (which would have been looked upon as mere thievery but on a grander scale) would have fit that description, so it's more than likely that he was just hanged. I also note that his character features in the new TV drama Black Sails.

TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS

1. Intro
2. Port Royal
3. Raging fire
4. Into the arena
5. Uaschitschun
6. Final gates
7. Conquistadores
8. Blown to kingdom come
9. Warchild
10. Mutiny
11. Calico Jack

An excellent closing track and perhaps, with the opener and closer, Running Wild were announcing their intention of bringing the pirate theme more to the fore on future albums. This I would still not, despite the title, artwork and the few pirate tracks on it, consider a true Pirate Metal album, though at the time it was the only one out there. But later, with bands like Alestorm and Swashbuckle coming through, the whole idea of keeping the theme running through the entire album would be embraced and as a result some really excellent Pirate Metal albums would come to be.

As for Running Wild, I note their next album, Death or Glory, while supposedly one of their most popular, still seems to have many non-pirate songs on it --- “Bad to the bone”, “Battle of Waterloo”, “Evilution”, while tracks such as “Billy the kid”, “Over the rainbow”, “Little Bighorn”, “Rolling wheels” turn up on the next one, Blazon Stone. So we move on to what we can see is a full pirate album from them, or at least a concept album with very much pirate themes surrounding it.

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Black Hand Inn --- Running Wild --- 1994 (Noise)
So, as we say here, what's the story? Well, the story basically is about a man, John Xenir, who uses black magic and is burned at the stake. But it would appear he is not dead, as he now runs an inn (the title one of course) which uses the only part of him that remained after he had been burned --- his blackened hand --- as its sigil. The opening track, “The curse”, is almost all spoken word, as John receives his sentence from the Inquisitor, then at first gentle, then more punchy guitar kicks in as the track ends in instrumental and into the title track. I must say, it certainly conjures up a real feeling of excitement, of something building. “Black Hand Inn” tells of the setting up of the tavern and of the man, rumoured to be a magician, who runs it. It's a great classic power metal song, and pulls in Running Wild's traditional anger against religion when a priest denounces John for trafficking with demons, but John proves that it is the priest who is evil.

The pace keeps up for “Mr. Deadhead”, which seems to be a sort of shot at man's greed and basic evil, and “Soulless” continues this theme, the song slightly slower with a kind of boogie feel to it, sharper, in-your-face guitar giving it almost a 70s hard rock idea, then the pirate theme comes home with a bang as “The privateer” rattles along on power metal rails, Xenir now seen as a cross between a seer and a pirate. He also appears to have become some sort of fighter for justice, which kind of dampens the pirate angle a little. There's an invitation to “Fight the fire of hate” with another powerful rocker, some sweet solos and an anthemic chorus that just sticks in your head, and then there's a nice sort of medieval guitar to open “The phantom of Black Hand Hill”.

It soon bursts into a big power metal thunderer though, and you could almost believe you were listening to early eighties Maiden here; the guitars are just fucking immense! Fantastic solo there near the end. “Freewind rider” puts me very much in mind of Denim and Leather/Wheel of Steel-era Saxon, though the rider is on a horse, not a motorcycle. The melody of the chorus sounds familiar, though I can't place it at the moment. But now we're back to pirates with “Powder and iron”, and does it rattle along! Everything then slows down on what sounds like synth, or else flute, pan pipes or something like that as we move into the realms of high fantasy with “Dragonmen”, and it only slowed for a few moments; it's now bursting forth with renewed energy. I must admit though, the change in lyrical matter is confusing me. If you're going to write a concept album, even a loose one, try to keep to the storyline. What has this to do with John Xenir?

Be that as it may, the very history of man is told in “Genesis (The Making and the Fall of Man)”, surely the longest song Running Wild have attempted, at just over fifteen minutes long. It opens with a narrated introduction which seems to refer to aliens from a far planet finding Earth and utilising the gold therein to rejuvenate their atmosphere (don't ask me: I didn't write it!) --- I think Rolf is using the ancient Babylonian or Sumerian gods here. He certainly mentions Enki and Eridu and others. But then it bleeds into Old Testament narrative as we hear about the Great Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah and the great battle of Armageddon, though Rolf gets it somewhat wrong here, quoting the “seventh month of 1999” as being Judgement Day. Um, still here, Rolf... talk to the Mayans, they know how you feel.

I suppose the overarching theme can be linked to say that these events are what John Xenir sees in his visions, but I feel the concept is so loose as to be almost falling apart. None of which takes from the excellence of the album, of course, which will be enjoyed by any power metal fan, but as a Pirate Metal album, again, it sort of disappoints me.

TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS

1. The Curse
2. Black Hand Inn
3. Mr. Deadhead
4. Soulless
5. The privateer
6. Fight the fire of hate
7. The phantom of Black Hand Inn
8. Freewind rider
9. Powder and iron
10. Dragonmen
11. Genesis (The making and fall of Man)

The problem I'm encountering with Running Wild so far (and I accept that I have not listened to all their albums, but a quick check through lyrics has told me whether or not a certain album fulfills the criteria for Pirate Metal) is twofold: one, their music veers between (very good) pirate songs and then other related material, and two, they're too serious for me. I mean, half the time they're advocating Man give up his evil ways and stop destroying each other and the planet --- which I have no problem with; it's good advice at any time, especially in 2015 --- the other half they're painstakingly describing the exploits of historical pirates. But to paraphrase Mister Burns, where's the fun?

Admittedly, my only personal experience with Pirate Metal up to this has been Alestorm, and I loved them because they were irreverent, hilarious and didn't give a fuck. They're not concerned whether Captain Jack Morgan lived in 1759 or 1790, or even if he lived at all (well, that's not totally true, as we'll see when we get to them), but more with having a good time and making the sort of music you can enjoy and laugh with. For me, Running Wild, though they are the progenitors of this music, missed a trick here, and that was just to have fun with the subject, and through that, to ensure their fans did too. I've enjoyed the music, the lyrics are on the whole pretty good, but there hasn't been one instance here where I've felt the urge to smile, whereas by the time I had got through the one Alestorm album I did listen to I had had to change my underwear three times!

Maybe this attitude changed as time went on, although I kind of doubt it. But we'll move right up to the twenty-first century as we check out the last offering from them that I'm going to look at before we move on.

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The Brotherhood --- Running Wild --- 2002 (Gun)

Sort of continuing the sense of disappointment vis a vis Pirate Metal, this album opens on another non-pirate track, as “Welcome to Hell” warns once again of the evils of man, with a nice trundling rhythm, biting guitars and hammering drums, “Soulstrippers” has some message about TV violence I think, and while I really thought the title track would be one, it's not: some sort of political rant against warmongers. It's a pity, as so far the album has been pretty stellar, but just as a power metal one, not a Pirate Metal one. I've yet to hear one song even vaguely referencing corsairs. “Crossfire” sounds like it might have some potential, right? Wrong. It's another stand-up-and-fight song, and while there's nothing wrong with them, I am beginning to weary a little of them. How many more ways can these guys overuse this tired subject?

At least the next one is an instrumental, and a long one at over six minutes, with “Detonator” apparently about someone who rather enjoys bombs and dynamite. This is finally followed by a song which has to be about pirates, since it's called, wait for it, “Pirate song”! Sure enough, it is, as we joyously return to the rogues of the high seas, and it's been worth waiting for, a rollicking, rolling rocker of a song with a great sense of bravado and courage, and for once just simply exulting in the pirate lifestyle, but it doesn't last of course as “Unation” (what?) and “Dr Horror” both return to other themes. Good power rockers, but I can get that on any power metal album really. The album then ends on another epic, ten minutes long this time, and focussing on T.E. Lawrence, the man who became known as “Lawrence of Arabia”. “The ghost” kicks off with a suitably Arabian riff, then jumps into a galloping power metal romp, and while the lyric is not the best it's a pretty climactic closer to the album.

TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS

1. Welcome to Hell
2. Soulstrippers
3. The Brotherhood
4. Crossfire
5. Siberian winter
6. Detonator
7. Pirate song
8. Unation
9. Dr. Horror
10. The Ghost

While I would not be so crass as to begrudge Running Wild their place as the fathers of Pirate Metal (it would be impossible to do so; they were, after all, the first and only ones doing this for about fifteen years), their tendency to stray away from the subject on every album I've listened to from them, and even when they do concentrate on pirates, the general air of almost stuffy historianism that pervades their songs takes an awful lot of what I saw as the fun in Pirate Metal out of it. While it's good that they're so determined to make sure their songs reflect proper historical facts and dates, I would not be so concerned about this as I would about making the music a wild ride, and given the name of their band that's what I would have expected.

But maybe it's because they're German, not exactly known for their sense of humour, or maybe it's because they ploughed this furrow alone for so long, or even that they weren't sure how far they could push the envelope without overstepping and stretching the patience of their fans; whatever the reason, I find Running Wild, as the fathers of Pirate Metal, behaving in exactly the way you would expect parents to: careful, dignified (compared to what followed) and sticking to a core set of values from which they would not budge. There's no question that they invented the pseudo-subgenre, but in later times, others were to take it to extremes that these guys had never even considered, and in so doing, make it far more acceptable and less stodgy than I found the majority of the pirate songs here.

Interesting. Is it just Dio-era Sabbath, or post-Ozzy? After all, there were only really three albums with RJD (plus a live one), so I just wonder if you rate them for their albums with the other vocalists, later on too, or are you simply pro-Ozzy era and that's it? I can't speak to technical areas of guitar playing, but I thought some of Iommi's best solos were on Heaven and Hell, though there's no doubt that he dropped the dark, doomy tone he had pioneered.

I of course am a Dio fanboy, so although I also love Ozzy era I will usually go for Dio-led, as the change to a more progressive and slightly less dark direction chimed with me. What did you think of 13?

I'm also not a big fan of the Dio years, but those records are pretty damn fantastic compared to Never Say Die! and Technical Ecstasy.

Yeah but in fairness, any Sabbath album would be fantastic compared to those two... ;)

Into Day Two we go, and another new album to check out, the second one from January as we review another release that has been
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As you all know, Death Metal is generally not my thing, but this is Metal Month after all, and it's unfair of me to restrict reviews to albums from genres I personally like, and indeed I've tried to avoid that over the last two years this has been running, resulting in some pretty nasty headaches for me! In keeping with that tradition then of all-inclusion, here's the next new album I want to take a look at.
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Crusade Zero --- Hate --- 2015 (Napalm)

Introduction: With a name like Hate, you probably can guess what to expect, and I guess if they weren't a Death Metal band then maybe the name might belie them, but in this instance I sincerely doubt it. Hate come from Poland, which is certainly interesting: I'm not aware of too many DM bands that hail from there, though of course as I just said I know very little about this subgenre, so for all I know the country could be crawling with them. It could be the epicentre and focal point of Death Metal. But again, I kind of doubt it. This is Hate's ninth album, and looking at them on their Wiki page, well, they don't look like the kind of dudes you would invite in to watch Grey's Anatomy, do they? They'd probably be more interested in exploring your anatomy! Preferably from the inside.
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Okay, that's enough generic slurs on Death Metal and this band in particular. Let's get down to cases. Cotton wool at the ready, here we go!

Track-by-track
1. Vox Dei (A call from beyond): This is short, so expecting an instrumental. Thunder booms, guitar wails, rains falls, sort of synthy strings? Dark, pealing bass and guitar gives you the idea that, um, something wicked this way comes. A minute and a half, and as expected it's an introductory instrumental.
2. Lord, make me an instrument of thy wrath! Another short one, another instrumental? Could be. Sort of carryon from the opener, perhaps odd to have two short instrumentals opening the album but we'll see. At least it's holding back the moment when I have to face the vocals!
3. Death liberator: And there they are. Here's where the music really begins. Deep, growly voice as I expected as singer Adam “ATF Sinner” (?) Buszko lets loose, but to be fair he's not too indecipherable. Ah, how you've matured, Trollheart, eh? There was a time when I wouldn't even think of listening to vocals like this, now I can comment on them. The music meanwhile is heavy, guitar-driven of course but not quite as aggressive as I would have expected it to be. Most of the tracks here seem to alternate between the five-to-six-minute mark and a minute or more, the latter of which I assume are little instrumentals and interludes. This is one of the longer ones, six minutes exactly, and you know, it's not bad. That main riff is to die for.
4. Leviathan: Starts with some feedback and sound effects which are I guess meant to conjure up visions of the great beast rising up out of the sea, then it's kind of dark and Sabbathy with a great grinding riff attended by another great riff. ATF Sinner seems to want to just sing (or bellow) something like “The beast called (?) Leviathan!” over and over. The lads on the guitars though are keeping it real. Take a bow, Konrad “Destroyer” Ramatowski, and ATF himself, who also takes axe duties in Hate. Ok, now ATF is singing more words, but I can't make most of them out. He's certainly passionate though. Great sense of doom and catastrophe on this track.
5. Doomsday celebrities: Another great heavy guitar line, thunderous drums and a big roar from ATF, something about embracing the silence? Superb.
6. Hate is the law: I already love it for the title! A great crushingly heavy opening, then it really gets going with guttural vocals from ATF and punishing guitar from him and the other lad. Sweet. Did he just growl “Rip this fucking world apart?” Ah, bless!
7. Valley of darkness: He brings fire, apparently. And in case you didn't hear him the first time, he brings fire, and he'll keep bringing it, as the vocal just keeps repeating pretty much the same sentence. So, what does he bring? Anyone? Hilarious. Great guitar passage near the end.
8. Crusade: zero: Wonderful chimy guitar work with some sort of bells pealing near the end and ol' ATF holding like a Black Mass or something. Or maybe reading his shopping list, I don't know. Sounds dark though, and “There's no light at the end of the tunnel”, he assures us.
9. The omnipresence: One of those shorter tracks; kind of ambient, atmospheric, spooky. An instrumental, one assumes? One is right.
10. Rise Omega the consequence! Odd title, doesn't scan. Good powerful dramatic guitar opening though, hammers along nicely.
11. Dawn of war: Another big instrumental intro and then it's all Sabbath for a while until it picks up and puts on its running shoes. For a six-minute track this does not drag at all.
12. Black aura debris: Another short one to end on, just shy of two minutes. An instrumental? You bet. Almost a case of “Welcome to the machine”, with its mechanical, droning ambient sound as a big guitar punches and slices across it. Maybe that's meant to be the world after Armageddon? Good ending.

Conclusion: Who would have thought I could ever enjoy a Death Metal album, especially one with those kind of vocals? But I did, very much so. I'm not saying I'd go back to it and listen to it for pleasure or anything, but it was a hell of a lot better than some of the albums I had to listen to last year. Or maybe I'm just maturing. Is that possible? Answers on a postcard... ah, ask yer da!

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Further problems raise their head; the lot of poor Trollheart eh? A lot of the bands on Metal Archives's list are shown as split-up, and really, unless the band was really well-known there's little point in my highlighting them if they are no longer around. Which restricts me then to “active” bands, of which there are not fistfuls to be honest. This one, however, is interesting. They apparently play Southern Metal. Southern Metal? In Bosnia? This I need to hear.

Just one problem: no album available. Or rather, there is, but I can't find it. Never fear though: they released a five-song EP only last year and again some enterprising metalhead has uploaded the whole thing in one go to the Y, so I can listen to that. And here it is.
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One stone --- Misery Crown --- 2014 (Self-released)

Another good thing is that these guys sing in English, so I should be hopefully able to get a better idea what their music is about. No keyboards this time, just two guitars, bass drum and vocals. They hail from beautiful Sarajevo and have only been together since 2012, but unlike our friends Apocalypse, they have already had an album in 2013 and now as I say an EP last year, so they're not letting the grass grow under their feet. It's a fast, frenetic guitar assault but then, weirdly, vocalist Ensar Bistrivoda has a sort of dour, slow doom voice which then metamorphoses into something close to a death growl. Indeed. “In absence of...” starts the EP off well, with deep enough lyrics: ”Nothing is sacred, nothing falls from the skies, no other truth beneath lies.” Okay, hardly the most original lines in the world but still, better than “kill everyone” or whatever.

Much slower and crunchier is the title track, with snarling guitars leading the line and Bistrivoda giving it socks on the vocals. Kind of reminds me of Hetfield maybe. Maybe not. Not a big Metallica fan, but it's what comes to mind. Good fast guitar solo speeds things up before it drops back down to the original tempo and kind of repeats really. I do like the idea in the lyric: ”One stone took down the giant/ All alone I stand in defiance.” Says it all really. A slow rasping guitar quickly becomes a chugalong one as “Lesser man” boogies along really nicely, with an interesting political message in the song: ”We gave them power/ And we can take it back” though they do belabour the point a little, repeating the word “back” several times.

Unfortunately they run out of ideas before the song is over and just repeat the whole thing but pushing up the tempo, which really does not work. I thought it was over, and it was ending well (in fact, I really like(d) this song) and then they did this, which just made a total mess of it. Why? It's only an EP: it's not like they had to fill up space, and if they had to, why not maybe a guitar solo or something? It just seems so unnecessary and so untidy. A real pity. And then they do it again. It gets just beyond ridiculous. The next track is an Alice in Chains cover apparently --- don't know their music, but it's called “Dam that river”, and if you know AiC I guess you'll know the song. As for how well they cover it, I couldn't tell you of course, but it's a decent rock stomper from what I can gather.

That leaves us with one track before the EP comes to a close, and “Among the brave” unfortunately has our man trying to sing death metal, and he's really not up to it: his “death growls” just sound like he has wind or something. A poor ending to what is generally not too bad an EP, if a little overblown. Don't really see the Southern Metal influence though. Unless ... is Sarajevo in the south of Bosnia? No, it's about the middle. Don't get it then.

TRACKLISTING

1. In absence of...
2. One stone
3. Lesser man
4. Dam that river
5. Among the brave

I don't know: if I had had a chance to listen to the full album I might have got into this, but if they insist on overextending their songs with pointless repetition, maybe this EP was enough. I have to say though it's a good bit better than poor old Apocalypse, then again that's really not saying very much, is it?

I noticed you put an Alice Cooper album in all this lot, I don't think I've ever seen you ever mention or review an Alice Cooper album before which is kind of strange.

That's when loads of them moved to the UK to get things like landlines and running hot water etc.

#irelandblows