Living in the UK isn't without its advantages; it means, for instance, that when the pre-orders of Sounds That Can't Be Made got mailed out the other day my copy arrived with great speed. I've spent the whole weekend giving it an in-depth listen and can happily report that this is the top-flight followup to Marbles with Somewhere Else and Happiness Is the Road weren't (and, to be fair, I don't think they were intended to be). Of course, you could guess from a look at the track times that Marillion are back in one of their proggier moods this time around, with three songs at over 10 minutes (and the first song on the album a 17 minute monster!). These three songs are effectively the tentpoles that hold the album up, being long proggy pieces in the tradition of The Invisible Man or Neverland from Marbles. It's ironic, actually, that Marillion have spent so much energy trying to distance themselves from tracks like Grendel when in fact in the H-era they've produced more long-form tracks than they ever did with Fish - though all of these songs are miles away from the monsters, magic, and mild Genesis borrowing of that track. Album opener Gaza might well prove to be one of the most controversial tracks of Marillion's career - not for its musical content, but for its lyrics and themes. Directly tackling the conflicts between Israel and the Palestinians is a profoundly difficult tightrope to walk, but to Steve Hogarth's credit his lyrics are unusually nuanced when it comes to rock songs about Gaza. It helps, I think that he's spent time talking to both Palestinians and Israelis (as he is careful to state in the album booklet) about the situation, and that though the lyrics show how a character born into a hopeless situation can be radicalised and turn to violence, at the same time it's fairly clear that H considers violent action utterly counter-productive at best, and directly contributing to the continuation and escalation of the cycle at worst ("For every hot-head stone ten come back"). As the song says, the situation documented has no easy answers ("nothing is ever simple"), and H is careful to note that there are "grieving mothers on both sides of the wire", and the main thrust of the song seems to be a lament that there have been so many generations of children born into and growing up in this conflict. I think on the whole these are sentiments that only the most hardline partisans in the conflict could disagree with, but I'm sure there'll be plenty of people from all sorts of backgrounds who find the song distasteful - some will say it's too sympathetic to the Palestinians, some will say it's not condemnatory enough of the Israelis, and so on. At the same time, I think Marillion were right to tackle the subject matter, since in many respects the song is a thematic descendant of Forgotten Sons from Script For a Jester's Tear - both taking a "peace first, ask questions later" approach to the conflicts they centre around. Some may question the booklet's endorsement of the Hoping Foundation, which is an organisation whose declared aim is to fund projects providing aid to Palestinian children; it seems to be something of a prog cause celebre, with David Gilmour and Roger Waters having got together in 2010 to support it, but on the other hand I get very mixed messages about it when I try to research its position; I suppose this just illustrates how difficult the subject is. The rest of the album is somewhat less heavy going. The middle tentpole, Montreal, is a 14 minute tribute to the city written as an account of one of the band's visits there on tour. Perhaps it's a little self-indulgent - a gushy blog post in the form of a song - but the general theme of discovering a city which is so welcoming and so supportive of you that it feels like a home away from home means that it is at least a bit more thematically deep than "thank you Montreal, we love our Canadian Marillion weekends". Closing number The Sky Above the Rain is an exploration of relationship difficulties and lack of communication, where the two protagonists are a woman who's stopped loving her partner but doesn't want to talk about it and the man in question, who's desperate to communicate about it and despises living a lie. All three of the tentpole songs are tour de forces as far as the band's performance goes, with Mark Kelly's keyboard soundscapes and Steve Rothery's guitar solos as always being a particular treat. As for the shorter songs, the most notable one is probably Pour My Love, which features lyrics from John Helmer, who helped H out with the lyrics for the albums from Seasons' End to Marillion.com and makes a welcome return here to provide the words for this rather soulful song - I don't think it's quite the "Marillion meets Prince" song that it's been described as but it's certainly creeping in that direction. The band don't seem to have been tempted to include any songs which don't support the generally fairly progressive tone of the album, with even lead single Power having more depth than you might think at first listen and some occasionally rather Steve Hackett-sounding guitar from Steve Rothery (who offers his own take on Hackett's distinctive "weeping guitar" sound at points). In short, if you're a fan of H-era Marillion and consider Marbles to be one of their better albums, you're highly likely to see this one as a return to form. I'll be seeing them live next week and apparently they intend to use Gaza as the opening number for their UK tour: I can't wait. Review by "Warthur" (Prog Archives).
RATING: 9.25 / 10 **MARVELLOUS**
RATING: 9.25 / 10 **MARVELLOUS**
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