Dropped by EMI in 1995, Marillion then signed with Castle Communications, releasing three albums before, via ‘crowdfunding’, they became an independent entity, creating their own market and needing record company support only for distribution. This was their final album with Castle and became the first Marillion album not to reach the Top 40. Originally released in 1999, it’s now being re-released in a 3CD deluxe edition, the album having been given a new stereo remix by Michael Hunter, plus the added bonus of a previously unreleased ‘live’ gig.
Marillion.com, their eleventh album, sees the band exploring a range of different styles… there’s straightforward rock, laid-back pieces, a venture into lounge and some quite proggy sections, though this isn’t a full-on prog album, which is why the album hasn’t always been the most popular with their more hardcore prog fans. Nonetheless, the album features a versatile and variable set of tunes, suggesting Marillion, while still holding onto their prog roots, were also looking forwards.
An example would be the ten-minute piece ‘House’, with its slow, moody, jazzy feel, a song about Steve Hogarth’s marriage breakdown. Personally, I thought this might’ve been better suited to a female singer, but it showed Marillion being prepared to try something different. ‘Interior Lulu’, however, sees Marillion going full-on prog on a fifteen-minute epic, which features moments of frenetic madness and instrumental pieces, alongside some mellow moments, and showcases some very engaging and creative playing, particularly from Steve Rothery and Mark Kelly.
Before these two tracks, there are several shorter pieces. No singles were released from this album, though either of the two better tracks, ‘Deserve’ and ‘Tumble Down The Years’, would’ve been suitable. The latter is a love song… you and me against the world… with good lyrics and a catchy melody, while ‘Deserve’ is a nice, tight rocker, though the sax makes it too close to sounding like Gerry Rafferty. Others which stand out are ‘Go!’ and the atmospheric ‘Enlightened’, though, for me, ‘Built-In Bastard Radar’ and ‘Rich’ didn’t quite cut it.
Most Marillion fans will probably already have this album. However, the selling point here is the inclusion of two discs featuring a gig recorded at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, November 1999. Marillion don’t so much have fans as, through the success of the ‘Marillion weekends’, they now have ‘faithful followers’. So when Steve Hogarth speaks between songs, he’s not addressing an audience, he’s having a cosy chat with several hundred of his closest friends.
This show features tracks from right across their past catalogue, with only tracks from Holidays In Eden and Script… not included. There are no epics or any real surprises in the set list, which includes a number of tracks from the new album, interspersed with several seasoned Marillion classics, such as ‘Afraid Of Sunlight’, ‘Brave’, ‘The Uninvited Guest’, ‘Easter’ and ‘Under The Sun’, all of which are performed superbly by a band who were on top form, especially Rothery and Kelly, whose playing was occasionally blistering.
They return to the eighties for their final three songs, ‘Kayleigh’, ‘Lavender’ and ‘Slainte Mhath’, which, being honest, I much prefer to hear when sung by Fish, though Hogarth is now gradually making them his own, and they were all well received by the audience.
Probably the only real surprise is why this gig was left in the vaults for as long as it was, but it provides an opportunity for Marillion fans to fill a gap in their collections.
