Marillion Marbles
Released: May 03, 2004 Origination Year: 2004 Time: N/A Tracks: 15 Produced by: Marillion & Dave Meegan Style: Studio Format: CD Enhancement: Book Packaging Website: www.marillion.com

(An important note here: this is the “limited campaign edition”, featuring two discs of music. The official release will be pared down to a single disc. In the reviewer’s opinion, there isn’t a single song the listener could do without… so get your 2cd copy at www.marillion.com while supplies last. Shameless shilling ends here.)

There are some bands that I, as a reviewer, worry about. I worry because I know how good they are, how each release builds upon the previous work, how the essentials of solid musicianship, atmosphere and individuality are respected, and how each release seems to be launched into a vacuum, unknown to the larger audience beyond a core group of devoted fans. Marillion has long been one of those bands. I would see the excitement the group brought to each release, and the fleeting hope that their blend of rock-pop-progressive would somehow work its magic on a larger stage. I’d also see how each release would be delayed in US distribution, relegated to small, second-tier labels and, finally, how said releases would asphyxiate in the noxious cloud known as “The Industry”.

Lately, the band has taken to pre-selling their music to their core fans from their site. This produced their previous effort, a quixotic blend of prog and trip known as “Anoraknophobia”. Their newest promised to be far more ambitious: for the fans, it would be a two-disc set of new music housed in a hardcover book. Sounds interesting, but packaging music has little to do with music at all. The question was whether “Marbles” would be worth the hype.

In short, the band has produced the quintessential Marillion release, full of drama, mood, deep blues and euphoric highs. Where some groups are content to let their songs be soundtracks to their listeners’ moments, this group has collected a bunch of songs that cannot provide background. These songs are moments in and of themselves. The overseer of this, Dave Meegan who has been with the band as producer since the early 90s, is now represented as the sixth member, and rightly so. His ear has helped define the unique nature of a Marillion sound. There are many groups out there that are known borrowers; they sound a little like this group, recall that group and pay homage to the next. On this one, Meegan (with mixing assist from production wunderkind and Porcupine Tree impresario Steven Wilson) takes great care to keep things distinctively Marillion and here’s hoping he stays on permanently.

I want to resist over-explanation because it’s a bit of a superstition of mine; if you look too far into it you lose the magic somehow. Suffice it to say that all the band’s touchstones are represented (I’ll just point out a few). “The Invisible Man” opens the set with a trademark suite, long but never so lingering as to grow boring, and always rising to peak and emotion. “Genie” shows the pop-rock side, something the guys have done for years, and how they’ve been ignored this long by the larger marketplace I’ll never know. I dare you to not be singing along by the end.

On every Marillion release there is a song that just gathers you up in a feeling, moves you and soars into the closing portion. This time around, it is “ Fantastic Place ”, a song that could be the best thing this group has ever done… ever. From the low-key, blue-eyed blues in the opening one would never suspect the take-off coming, but when it does, the goosebumps must rise. I can only describe “ Fantastic Place ” as gorgeous music.

Disc one closes with another long piece that is as close as rock has ever come to sounding like an Ernest Hemingway novel. “Ocean Cloud” is a drama and shows how intense these players can get. If you thought “The Invisible Man” rocked, just wait.

 

"You can take all the boys and the girls in the world
I wouldn't trade them this morning for my sweet Ocean Cloud
I've seen too much of life
So the sea is my wife and a sweet ocean cloud is a mistress I'm allowed
for now."

Disc Two finds the loose and sexy “The Damage”, the jazzy “Angelina”, Anorak-approved trip on the first single “You’re Gone” and what may be the closest Marillion will ever get to country music, “Don’t Hurt Yourself”.  Don’t make that face at me; it’s not what you think. With the acoustic guitar and a clean fill of steel guitar sliding, this is an excellent driving song filled with singalong potential and rolled-down windows. Interspersed between the two discs are four short segue pieces, “Marbles 1-4”. Each one acts as a magician’s left hand, misdirecting you while he sets the trick with the right. Some of them sound ready to burst into larger things while others shed a narrow light on the meaning behind the album’s title… Is it about nascent insanity, the loss of childhood innocence, the intended expulsion of childhood? The mini songs hint at all but still leave you guessing.

The set closes with the last of the long pieces, a rumination of love; the way that it holds us, heals us and sometimes haunts us. There are only fleeting references to “Neverland”’s characters of Wendy and Peter Pan. The song is more about the eternal man-child relinquishing his youth for that one, true love that does all the previously mentioned things. The music is both wonderful and sad, as if to comment that to love is to open yourself up to mortality, the ultimate end of both love and life, but it is somehow worth it. The tragedy is in leaving it unrequited.

I haven’t mentioned several tracks here and don’t feel I should. The great thing about “Marbles” was and is the discovery of each disc, each song, as the complete series plays out. Steve Hogarth, the voice of the band, has come into his own as a lyricist, reaching down into the most poetic side of the group’s personality to produce songs with specific frames of reference but are not adaptations. Mark Kelly’s keyboards carry the full spectrum of sound, from the Fender Rhodes to the stars while Steve Rothery continues to be one of rock’s most overlooked natural wonders. Some rhythm sections just hold down a beat, but the complicated shifts of tone, from Beatlesque to jazz-inflected to a full-on crunch, is something bassist Pete Trewavas and drummer Ian Mosely make effortless, sounding instinctive. This band is a cohesive whole and I can’t imagine it working were a single piece out of place.

Is Marbles right for you? I hope so. The two-disc “campaign edition” is a beautiful hardcover book in a slipcase, all designed by visual artist Carl Glover. The lyrics spill out over multiple pages and the artwork is compelling stuff, more like a coffee table book of photography than ornamentation for a jewel case booklet. And it is a lovely curio and a treat for the fans, but were it not included in the package, these two discs of career defining music are worth the price asked.

Marbles is a five-star collection, without doubt or reservation. I didn’t need to worry about Marillion because, even in the relative obscurity of the modern music scene, they refuse to stand still or go on the cheap. They are, in fact, the one group I urge everyone to get to know because you’ll always be rewarded in return.

Additional thoughts: John Dunphy

Before he wrote this, Dw. came to me with his worries that he would end up sounding like nothing but a gushing fanboy in this review and that no one would take him seriously. Well, screw that, I don’t care if anyone thinks I’m a fanboy, Marbles is worth every single star it is given and if there is any justice in the world, “You’re Gone” (number 7 on the UK charts in its first week helped in great part to the insurmountably loyal fan base the band has assembled over the years) will become the song of 2004.

Just as Dw. said, every piece of the band works with the rest and I cannot think of how, or if, it would work were one of those pieces missing. Even producer Dave Meegan – who really has become a sixth member of the band – is essential here. For many out there who only remember “Kayleigh” from way, way back in the dark ages known as the mid- 1980s, this is not the same Marillion, yet in a way it is. Not that they’ve changed or modernized their sound like so many bands attempt to do when their star begins to descend, these Marillions evolve. They’re not trying to be an alt-country rock band, they’re Marillion throwing some alt-country rock influences into their mix on “Don’t Hurt Yourself”, they’re not a jazz band, they’re Marillion throwing some jazz influences into the mix on “Angelina”. In the end, no matter what sound or style the band flirts with, they will always remain Marillion.

Their campaign edition of Marbles compliments my opinion of the band perfectly: they are artists in every sense of the word. And if that sounds like gushing fanboy pabulum, so be it. Just listen, just go pick up Marbles, hell, pick up one of the other albums from Marillion’s “modern era” (basically anything from Brave (1994) on), as well and then smack yourself on the forehead for doubting me. I know, it’s a cleansing feeling.

Like the shirt says, Marillion is probably the best band in the world.

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