antiReviews:
Marrillion – marrillion.com
Review by Scott
Vile
Label: Sanctuary
Records
Release Date:
1999
Track Listing:
A Legacy
Deserve
Go!
Rich
Enlightened
Built-In Bastard Radar
Tumble Down The Years
Interior Lulu
House
Marrillion is a progressive
rock band that have been around since the ice age but this CD has been
my first introduction to them. Marillion earns my respect by doing their
own thing, their music is at times eerie and combines a lot of funk, jazz,
and keyboards. Before I begin, let me first just say how sick and tired
I am of bands naming their CDs after their official websites. Okay with
that said, now I’ll do a track by track.
The opener
“A Legacy” demonstrates their brand of jazz and funk fusion, and it’s a
very strong track. I could stand for it to be a bit shorter, but maybe
that’s because MTV ruined my attention span years ago. “Deserve” is funky
with strong hooks and horns, it’s a fun song. “Go!” slowly builds to nothing,
it really is a chore sitting there, listening to this song. Next up is
“Rich.” To promote this album, the band combined “Rich” with “Deserve”
on a double A-side, and it was a smart move. They are the most appealing
tracks on the album. “Deserve” is fun and upbeat, with hand-clapping percussion
and a sing-along chorus. The song is a bit too inspirational for me, it’s
good to give a positive message but this track almost comes off like a
middle school D.A.R.E. assembly. The moral of the song is summarized by
the lyric “Failure is not about falling down, it’s about staying down.”
The song is cheesy, but so am I so it works on me. Again, they could have
easily trimmed a couple of minutes off this track. The next song “Enlightened,”
is a good track… to skip over. This is another one of those slowly building
songs that you need to be in the right mood to listen to. “Built-In Bastard
Radar” is the heaviest song on the album and has a cool instrumental break,
but once again, cheesy lyrics. Look at the title, it’s about how all women
possess this, need I say more? “Tumble Down The Years” gets a couple points
knocked off for ripping off the riff of “Here Comes The Sun” but gets them
added right back by stealing from The Beatles. Hey, if you’re going to
borrow, borrow from the best, right? Nothing wrong with that, in fact this
is my favorite song off the album. Vocalist Steve Hogarth’s voice really
shines on this one. The final two songs, “Interior Lulu” and “House,” are
15 minutes and 10 minutes in length, respectively. Listening to them is
like a type of torture to me, so I’m not even going to mention them further.
Well, I will say that “Interior Lulu” does it’s best to catch you off guard
about 5 minutes into it.
Marillion has a lot
going for them. The band has a great vocalist, original vibe, but they
are in love with epic tracks whose song times far exceed radio friendliness.
This is how they’ve built up their loyal cult audience but haven’t broken
into the mainstream. Since they released their first record in 1983 and
have consistently put out albums ever since, it’s safe to say they’re happy
with their success and aren’t trying to be huge. And by loyal audience
I mean it! Marillion has been relying on their fans for monetary contributions
to fund their tours and new album. For some reason, I find that a lot more
interesting than the slow songs on this CD.
The Band: Steve Hogarth –
Voice
Steve Rothery –
Guitars
Mark Kelly – Keyboards
Pete Trewavas –
Bass
Ian Mosley – Drums
and Percussion
