When Marillion returned in 1991 with Holidays In Eden, their second album with “new” singer Steve Hogarth, long-time fans decried it as the death of their favorite band. It was an abrupt shift, dropping the heavily Genesis-inspired prog-rock of their past for a much glossier, more commercial “pop” sheen.
With shorter, less involved songs, the emphasis drifted from the complexity of the arrangements and the density of former vocalist Fish’s convoluted, twee poetry to emphasize songcraft and structure. The change seemed a very calculated one by a band eager to move on from the limitations of their genre.
While fans initially balked at the idea that Hogarth wanted to turn the band into a pop-music machine, Holidays In Eden revealed more depth and emotion than Marillon had ever shown before: It was clear from the album-ending trilogy “This Town/100 Nights” suite (as it has come to be known) that they still had plenty of prog left in them. The theory was then more than proven with the following album, a 70-minute concept piece that was as anti-pop and anti-commercial as a band could get – as if Marillion simply wanted to keep fans happy.
Who would guess it would take them 13 years to get back to where they started out trying to change, with a cleaner, sharper focus and sound? After 1991, Marillion had been fitfully fulfilling its destiny as a prog-rock band, as if constrained to the genre and desperately wanting to break free, but fearful of a backlash from fans.
The hints had been there all along: After Holidays In Eden, they included one or two “pop” oddities on each record, and in retrospect it’s become obvious that this was the direction Marillion wanted to go, but feared doing more than simply hinting – testing the waters, essentially. The evolution was a careful, calculated one, as each release shed a bit more of that old Genesis-derived sound and incorporated more of modern rock’s influences.
The culmination of this process came with the May 3, 2004 release of Marbles, the second album whose evolution was funded by fans before it even existed as more than ideas in the heads of the band members. The resulting album was an odd beast – a modern-rock concept album with few of the pretensions of the prog-rock that is typically associated with the concept album.
Marbles wasn’t without flaws: The four short title-track pieces serve virtually no purpose and, in spots, sound as if they were recorded on the fly with no time for corrections or overdubs, as is evidenced by Steve Hogarth’s struggling to sing on the first installment.
Overall, however, Marbles was without a doubt among the best work Marillion has done.
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Still my most played CD(s) and yes I have the double pre-order version. Waiting for them to get anywhere near this one as have been realtively disappointed with the last 3 offerings.