Barbelith Underground > Radio & Music > New Marillion Single (April 2004)

I have had Marbles now for about two weeks, and have been playing in non-stop in the car. Excellent Album, with a lot of different "Marillion" styles throughout.

On first listening, I didn't listen properly (a quick fly through!)and thought "what was all the fuss", second listening "I got it", third listening - spotted loads of intricacies that I missed before. I think it's an album that promises a lot of songs that could be released a singles (Fantastic Place, Don't Hurt Yourself, Genie) and get the band noticed by loads more people, and that is where they belong. That being said, none of the songs are typical chart format. Any newcomers to their music might think they've found a new genre of music without realising that Marillion have been doing this for years. It would be interesting to see how many new young "Marillion" sounding bands jump on the proverbial bandwagon if the single does well (as reports say it will!).

I found that I reacted to "Brave" in the same way that I reacted to Marbles - I couldn't get into it on first listening (shame on me), but now one of the best albums ever written by my reckoning, if not the best album. Certainly my favorite, and I was soooooo pleased when they made a DVD of Brave live at the Marillion "Spring Harvest" convention (UK Christian joke there, sorry!).

The thing with Marillion is that their music is often so intricate and works on so many different levels that it often needs several listenings for it to totally sink in - not always the best way to get noticed by the general public who are dosed up with 3 minute "verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus," songs. Didn't the boys write a song about that? (Three Minute Boy).

"Ocean Cloud" is to me Classic Marillion stuff reminicent of Clutching At Straws album.

"Drilling Holes" and "The Damage" remind me of Sergeant Pepper, but I don't know why - it's still Marillion but in their (what I would call) their obscure mode! In saying that I don't mean it's rubbish - far from it, they just take a little longer to "get"!

The first track "Invisible Man" feels to me to be a lot of songs joined together at the hip, sort of in the "Interior Lulu, This Strange Engine" vein.

"You're Gone", being the first single is a good choice, with a trippy electronic beat feel to the song, but without losing their "sound". It certainly isn't climbing on the chart bandwagon stuff, and it could introduce a whole lots of youngsters who might think that Marillion were just an eighties (heavy metal?) band that brought Kayleigh to their parents. Even the Sun newspaper this week described them a eighties perm-rockers or something. - who had the perm????? Peter T was the closest!

On the whole Marbles is an album that encompasses the whole of Marillion's diversity and musicianship, and it's always been this diversity that IS the key to Marillion.

I wish them well with the new single and album. I certainly would like Marillion to show the whole music industry what a farce the music industry has become, what with 'build you own pop star shows' and all the money that goes down the drain into promoting tat. Money can create number one singles, but what happens to real music? The charts are full of artists that you never hear of again. I hope Marillion show to the public that they haven't just recorded Kayleigh, but have been crafting consistently brilliant music over several decades now, despite having little funding to do so. What a band!