Pass the Kool-aid

Well the much hyped and much leaked 18th studio album by Marillion, F.E.A.R. (Fuck Everyone and Run), has been released to a much expected level of frothing* by some uber-fans and music journalists. "The best thing since Brave", "Their best ever!" they exclaim (including a review in a Fleet Street broadsheet). Well it isn't...

I've been a Marillion fan since 1983, I like most of the band's releases and, in my opinion, think there are some classics in there. Will F.E.A.R. be amongst them? Well come back in a few years and let's see, it is ridiculous to rush to make such conclusions in the short space of time it has been available (even if we count the time it has been around illegally).

This time we have an edgy political "concept" album, in the same edgy vein as Gaza off the last album. In fact in many respects it is almost Gaza the album. The subject matter might be closer to home, but it has that vibe. Indeed it feels like the band have identified the best bits off the last few albums, tweaked them a bit and released them on the public. This does not mean it is a bad album, but the sound is very familiar, Hogarth's singing styles are similar to those he has used on the last couple of releases (a mix of whispering to an occasional full on H).

Overall I like the album, but I am not loving it. There is no stand out track like Neverland or even When I Meet God and it certainly is not on a par with Misplaced Childhood or Brave. Where does it rank? I don't know and to be honest I don't care. The proof in the pudding will be whether it is a "go to" album in six months time or be largely forgotten (Marillion.com I'm looking at you).

*and to an extent the naysayers who think everything Marillion does is boring and have to say so...

STCBM058: The City of My Dreams

Tonight’s Sounds That Can Be Made playlist:

Mike Kershaw - The City Of My Dreams (from What Lies Beneath)
Knifeworld - Secret Words (from Bottled Out of Eden)
Birdeatsbaby - Scars (from Tanta Furia)
Threshold - Clear (from Extinct Instinct)
League of Lights - Cover Me Now (from League of Lights)
Solar - In A Dark Place (from Dark Places)
Arena - Smoke and Mirrors (from Pepper’s Ghost)
Massive Attack - Teardrop (from Mezzanine)
Archive - Bullets (from Controlling Crowds (Parts I-III))
Public Service Broadcasting - The Other Side (from The Race For Space)
Cairo - Searching (from Say)
Porcupine Tree - Nine Cats (from On The Sunday Of Life…)

The Eighties at 8:
Marillion - Fugazi (from Fugazi)
Peter Gabriel - Red Rain (from So)

Rush - Seven Cities Of Gold (from Clockwork Angels)
Maschine - Venga (from Rubidium)
Saul Blease - Hollow (from Hollow)

STCBM053: First Birthday Show!

Tonight’s Sounds That Can Be Made birthday playlist:


Cozy Powell - Over The Top (from Over The Top)
The Pineapple Thief- Nothing At best (from Someone Here is Missing)
The Reasoning - Aching Hunger (from Awakening)
Porcupine Tree - Open Car (from Dead Wing)
Frost* - No Me No You (from Milliontown)
Galahad - Termination (from Empires Never Last)
Fish - Square Go (from 13th Star)
Pendragon - Nostradamus (Stargazing) (from The Window of Life)

The Eighties at 8:

Magnum - Soldier of the Line (from Chase the Dragon)
Marillion - Forgotten Sons (from Script For A Jester's Tear)
Twelfth Night - We Are Sane (from Fact and Fiction) - for Angela

Rainbow - Stargazer (from Rising)
Pink Floyd - High Hopes (from The Division Bell)

STCBM048: Journeys

Tonight’s Sounds That Can Be Made playlist:

Parzivals Eye - Journeys (from Defragments)
Blackfield - Glow (from Blackfield)
Secrets For September - You Make Me Me (from Insert Title Ear)
Matt Stevens - Rusty (from Archive)
Bluehorses - Black is the Colour (from Skyclad)
TILT - No Superman (from Hinterland)
Grand Tour - The Horn of Plenty (from Heavy on the Beach)
The Moody Blues - The Night (i. Nights In White Satin ii. Late Lament) (from Days off Future Passed)
Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees (from The Bends)
DeeExpus - Seven Nights (from Half Way Home)
Sylvan - That’s Why It Hurts (from Artificial Paradise)

The Eighties at 8:
a-ha - Take On Me (from a-ha)
Demon - The Plague (from The Plague)

We Are Kin - No Evil (from …and I know…)
Threshold - Autumn Red (from For the Journey)
Marillion - Separated Out (from Anoraknophobia)

STCBM044: Bank Holiday Acoustic Special

Tonight’s Sounds That Can Be Made playlist:

Marillion - Runaway (acoustic) (from Brave - remaster)
Threshold - Fragmentation (acoustic version) (from Wireless - Acoustic Sessions)
Arena - (Don't Forget To) Breathe (live acoustic) (from Radiance)
The Reasoning - The Thirteenth Hour (from Acoustically Speaking)
Green Carnation - The Burden is Mine… Alone (from The Acoustic Versions)
Saul Blease - Falling (piano version) (from Falling (piano version))
Joey Eppard - Been to the Future (from Been to the Future)
The Pineapple Thief - Light Up Your Eyes (from More Wars - The Acoustic Sessions)
Frost* - Black Light Machine (acoustic Session) (from The Rockfield Files)
Pendragon - Unspoken Words (from Acoustically Challenged)
Shadow Gallery - Alaska (from Carved in Stone)
Spock's Beard - Looking For Answers (live acoustic) (from Snow)
Porcupine Tree - Nine Cats (acoustic version) (from Insignificance)

The Eighties at 8: 
Guns’n’Roses - Patience (from G’n’R Lies)
Jethro Tull - Under Wraps #2 (from Under Wraps)

Tiger Moth Tales - Invisible Touch (from Pete Jones Plays Genesis - Seven Stones Turned (Charity Release))
Anathema - Flying (from Hindsight)
Savatage - When The Crowds Are Gone (acoustic version 2011) (from Dead Winter Dead 2011 reissue)
Black Label Society - Chupacabra (from Order of the Black)

Hope you enjoyed it…
(repeats on Progzilla.com Friday at 1.30pm)

Next week’s edition of Sounds That Can Be Made on Progzilla.com will feature music by The Darkness, Napier's Bones, Messenger - Band, Anekdoten, Fractal Mirror, Paradigm Shift, British Theatre, Hedfuzy, Iamthemorning, Erudite Stoner, Amplifier and Konchordat with our Eighties at 8 tracks from Yes and Red Rider…

STCBM041: A Boy in Darkness

Tonight’s Sounds That Can Be Made playlist:

Big Big Train - A Boy in Darkness (from English Electric Part One)
Marillion - Three Minute Boy (from Radiation)
Fractal Mirror - Universal (from Slow Burn 1)
British Theatre - Blue Horror (from Mastery)
IQ - You Never Will (from Dark Matter)
Fruitcake - On the Edge (from Man Overboard)
Mystery - The Sailor and the Mermaid (from Beneath The Veil Of Winter's Face)
Oktopus - Eyes Open (from Worlds Apart)
Amplifier - The Octopus (from The Octopus)

SWMBO’s The Eighties at 8: 
Electric Light Orchestra - Ticket to the Moon (from Time)
Twelfth Night - Love Song (from Fact & Fiction)

Niall Mathewson - Left it Behind (from Eclectic Electric Volume 1)
Messenger - Dear Departure (from Illusory Blues)
Sylvan - Turn of the Tide (from Force of Gravity)

Hope you enjoyed it…
(repeats on Progzilla.com Friday at 1.30pm)

Next week’s edition of Sounds That Can Be Made on Progzilla.com will feature music by Paradigm Shift, Dreamscape, Lee Abraham, Parzivals Eye, Riverside, Lonely Robot, Asia, Gazpacho, Mr. So & So, Spock’s Beard and The Skys with our Eighties at 8 tracks from OMD and Fischer Z…

STCBM038: Sleeping Giants

Tonight’s Sounds That Can Be Made playlist:

Touchstone - Sleeping Giants (from The City Sleeps)
Kingbathmat - Rejected (from Fantastic Freak Show Carnival)
Maze of Time - Ocean of Dreams (from Tales From the Maze)
Mike Kershaw - Terracotta (from Ice Age)
Alcest - Autre Temps (from Les Voyages de L’Âme)
Coheed and Cambria - The Light & The Glass (from In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3)
Porcupine Tree - Arriving Somewhere But Not Here (from Deadwing)
Masakichi - Papercuts (from Hummingbird)
Marriages - Part the Dark Again (from Kitsune)

The Eighties at 8:
Barclay James Harvest - Berlin (from Berlin: A Concert For The People)
Marillion - Berlin (from Seasons End)

Hedfuzy - When I Come Back Down (from Hedfuzy)
Red Bazar - Sunset For a New World (from Tales From the Bookcase)

Hope you enjoyed it…
(repeats on Progzilla.com Friday at 1.30pm)

STCBM035: Easter

Tonight’s Sounds That Can Be Made playlist:

Marillion - Easter (from Season’s End)
Pallas - Violet Sky (from XXV)
Cynic - True Hallucination Speak (from Kindly Bent to Free Us)
Lacuna Coil - Our Truth (from Karmacode)
Tom Slatter - Mother's Been Talking To Ghosts Again (from Three Rows of Teeth)
Gazpacho - Black Lily (from March of Ghosts)
Subsignal - The Stillness Beneath The Snow (from Paraíso)
Red Bazar - Queen of the Night Part 1 (from Tales From The Bookcase)
The Reasoning - The Thirteenth Hour (from Adverse Camber)
RPWL - Silenced (from The RPWL Experience)

The Eighties at 8: 
Pendragon - Alaska (from The Jewel)
Rainbow - Eyes of Fire (from Straight Between the Eyes)

Pure Reason Revolution - Blitzkrieg (from Hammer and Anvil)
Mystery - The Mourning Man (from Destiny?)

Hope you enjoyed it…
(repeats on Progzilla.com Friday at 1.30pm)

STCBM033: Welcome Back My Friends...

Tonight’s Sounds That Can Be Made playlist:

Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Karn Evil 9 1st Impression, Pt 2 (from Brain Salad Surgery)
Fractal Mirror - Floods (from Slow Burn 1)
Agent Fresco - Eyes of a Cloud Catcher (from A Long Time Dreaming)
Flicker Rate - Elusive Rain (from Flicker Rate EP)
The Fierce & the Dead - Chief (rehearsal recording) (from Magnet vinyl EP)
Arcane - Little Burden (from Known/Learned)
Mike Kershaw - Shades of Quiet Terror (from Reason to Believe)
Dec Burke - Destroy All Monsters (from Destroy All Monsters)
Cosmograf - Stuck in the Wood (from Capacitor)
The Mute Gods - Feed the Troll (from Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me)

The Eighties at 8:
Marillion - Script For a Jester’s Tear (from Script For a Jester’s Tear)
Pink Floyd - When The Tigers Broke Free (single version) (from When The Tigers Broke Free)

Steven Wilson - Drive Home (from The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories))
The Enid - Mocking Bird (from First Light)
Amorphis - Under the Red Cloud (from Under the Red Cloud)

Hope you enjoyed it…
(repeats on Progzilla Radio Friday at 1.30pm)

STCBM001: ...Is Go!

Tonights' Sounds That Can Be Made playlist:

Rainbow - Stargazer
Orphaned Land - Norra El Norra
The Pineapple Thief - 3000 Days
Steven Wilson - Hand Cannot Erase
Porcupine Tree - Open Car
Cosmograf - White Car
Leprous - Foe
Marillion - Sounds That Can’t Be Made
Pink Floyd - High Hopes

Hope you enjoyed it...

Sit And Chew On Daffodils...

Today is the thirtieth anniversary of the release of Marillion's Script For A Jester's Tear. Writing that makes me feel somewhat old! Script is an important album in my record collection as it introduced me to prog, not that I really appreciated that at the time. My musical taste in the late seventies and early eighties had been centred around the classic heavy rock of albums like Rainbow Rising, the emergence of NWOBHM classics like Number of the Beast and Wheels of Steel. Bands like Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull, King Crimson etc didn't feature.* Script changed that...

Listening back to the album it clearly has flaws but its still has a power and emotion about it that enchants. Fans of seventies Genesis claim the music is highly derivative, it may be but I don't hear it. The reason for that is the lyrics. Full of passion, pathos and anger, Fish is a superb wordsmith and every song here has moments that make the hairs stand up on my neck.

The title track weeps sadness of love lost, Garden Party spits sacrasm at the silver spoon brigade, Chelsea Monday resonates with pathos of a life wasted and Forgotten Sons, the piece de resistance in my opinion, fires off salvoes of bottled up anger at the wasted lives in the Northern Ireland Troubles. Show me a Genesis album with any of that...

So tonight I'm sitting chewing daffodils behind the hull of my Saracen armoured car, playing Script For A Jester's Tear and toasting it for introducing me to a genre, and bands and songs I love, that may have passed me by.

* Pink Floyd were the exception but everyone bought The Wall and The Final Cut (also thirty years old) spoke to me as one of Maggie's millions. I didn't realise that was "prog" but in the early eighties rock fans liked everything from Marillion to Metallica and were not obsessed with sub-genre labels.

2012 Top Ten: 4 Marillion - Sounds That Can't Be Made

At number four of my best albums of 2012 is Marillion's return to form album Sounds That Can't Be Made.

It was thirty years ago that I managed to hunt down the 12" single of Market Square Heroes (complete with the epic Grendel) and it is impressive that the band are still hungry enough and motivated enough to keep producing new music.

The album isn't perfect, Pour My Love is a couple of minutes too long and Montreal is lyrically uninspiring (some people like it, I don't). However, with the epic Gaza (and Steve Rothery remembering what an electric guitar is for), the wonderful title track as well as classy numbers like Power and The Sky Above The Rain it is easy for forgive the slight imperfections as the rest is as near perfect as you can get.

I managed to get to see Marillion on tour as well in September this year at Cardiff and they were very tight and hugely entertaining with a great set. When many 'old' bands have sat on their bygone laurels and effectively become tribute acts to themselves it is great to see that some old dogs can play new tricks...