Monday, January 6, 2014

#1089 Marillion - Misplaced Childhood

Landing somewhere between Rush and Journey on the artrock-poprock scale, this has all the trappings of prog (long songs, a smattering of strange time signatures, preposterous imagery, general indulgence) without really committing to them, instead padding them in shinny production, accessible themes, and pretty, major-chord guitarwork. It sounds dropped from an alternate universe where Peter Gabriel left Genesis and went big-guitar pop instead of little-synth icy.

And while you might be a little embarrassed to be heard listening to it, not least because of Fish's sub-Gabriel British emoting, if you're honest, its kind of... good. Pretty in places, inventive in others, all fairly safe, but never quite boring.

The fact that it's all so proto-emo, somehow less cool than deeply uncool prog itself, is offputting to say the least. But the underlying music is so shifty, shimmerey, and downright melodic its impossible to disregard altogether 3.5/5

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