Following the unexpected success of Script For A Jester's Tear (popular prog resurrection in the 1980's, our journalistic friends?), Marillion followed up in 1984 with Fugazi, an album that saw them progress leaps and bounds in both commercial nous and originality. Whilst still the undoubted kings of the healthy prog movement of the time, this release meant that they could no longer be regarded as mere Genesis, Yes, VDDG, or other classic band clones. They were a musical force to be reckoned with in their own right, and all the healthier for that as well.
The bitter and scathing lyrics first witnessed on Script were continued to devastating effect on the opener, Assassing, an unlikely hit single, based around the band's self-styled "Spinal Tap" drummer period. By the time they recorded this, Ian Mosley, a former Steve Hackett Band member, had been recruited, sounded fantastic, and has been with the band ever since. It is a rollicking rocker, delivered with huge panache, and British chart watchers and buyers lapped up the strange big Scottish man with weird makeup.
Punch & Judy was another hit single, a clever song telling a story of marital strife and breakup, delivered with a caustic lyrical edge. Pop prog at its very finest, and herein lies the key to the massive success the band enjoyed with this and the follow up albums. They understood that they were writing and selling music in the aftermath of punk, and that commercial success would only come about if they happened to sound modern. They did, and that success was thoroughly deserved.
The highlight of the album, for me, is Jigsaw. I fell in love with this song when I first listened to it some twenty-six years ago now. A beautiful and bittersweet chronicle of unspent love, it features an incredible vocal performance, added to a lyrical guitar solo by Steven Rothery which tells the story as well as the lyrics themselves, all backed up by some soaring keyboards by Kelly and the formidable rhythm section of Trewavas & Mosley. This is perhaps the greatest prog song of that era, and shows me why, as much as I love IQ, Pallas, and Pendragon, why Marillion were the undisputed masters of this particular new wave of prog. The sound of a band at the top of their game, and only, for heaven's sake, on their second studio long player.
The quality does dip a little bit with Emerald Lies, a track, which if I remember rightly, was held over from Script, and it shows. As much as I love Script my love of this follow-up album is based on the fact that it is a genuine progression, and this is a track which is absolutely not. In fact, it sounds naive in comparison with all else.
She Chameleon is a thoughtful piece of music, featuring some stunning keyboard work by Mark Kelly and an understated performance by Fish. Album filler, perhaps, but high quality for all that.
The album reasserts itself, though, in truly grand and grandiose terms with the two outrageously adventurous epics that were Incubus and Fugazi. I know for a fact that many people who bought the album on the back of the hit singles were converted to "true" progressive rock by these tracks. Songs which not only told a story well, but also in a fantastically well performed musical backdrop.
Incubus is a hoot. The poor girl ditches her weird bloke, moves on, only to find that he reappears at the local pub where she has come out with her latest love. Latest love pops along to the khazi, and ditched bloke begins to show her photos of the pair of them in what I will politely describe as compromising positions threatening to expose (literally!) them to the wider world, starting with the new bloke. Hilarious, incredible social commentary on the use of such work, and visionary, in that this is precisely what is happening the world over via internet chatrooms and social media sites. Brilliant.
The title track refers to an American slang for ambushed in the Vietnam War or fucked up. Thus "This world is totally Fugazi". He's right as well. This track is the natural follow up and progression from Forgotten Sons on the predecessor album, both lyrically and musically. A tremendous way to finish an LP. When Fish asks "where are the prophets, where are the visionaries? Where are the poets?", he need look no further than the nearest mirror. A true poet and absolutely the reason why we fell in love with the band in the first place. It should also not be forgotten that the musicianship backing this lyrical poetry was of the highest order, themselves telling the story with menace.
Is this a masterpiece of progressive rock? Not if I am honest. If it didn't contain Emerald Lies and She Chameleon, I would say undoubtedly. It is an excellent addition to any prog rock collection, and the reason why prog was so damned good back then.
The natural successor to the excellent Signals album, and with a new producer in tow, the feel of its predecessor is continued, albeit with a far darker and almost at times apocalyptic tone. The album is, by far, the most political they had written and recorded, and is, largely, none the worse for that.
There are some genuine Rush classics on this album. The opener, Distant Early Warning, positively rips its way into your consciousness. The following track, Afterimage, manages the fusion of powerful synth lead with a resurgent Lifeson lead guitar, and this is followed up beautifully and powerfully with the timeless Red Sector A. Lifeson sets the tone from the outset with one of his best signatures in the band's long and glorious history, and it is a signature that more than amply backs up the doom laden, painful concentration camp inspired lyrics sung effectively by Lee, heavy synths in tow. Lyrically and musically, one of the finest tracks the band ever recorded.
The Body Electric is a great singalong piece with its 1001001 chorus, and more rather bleak lyrics dealing with technology taking over our lives and society. The opening drum roll is classic Peart, and, lyrically, it is as interesting as anything he produced during the band’s "genuine" sci fi phase, and fans of that period would probably berate me for stating that, musically, this track has worn a lot better in hindsight over the years.
The closer, and, incidentally, the longest track on the album at 5:44, Between The Wheels, is a fine way to end the album and, more than anything, realises in glorious sound just how much Alex Lifeson had reconciled himself to the direction the band were taking. His solo is awesome, and the track's strength lies in its simplicity.
Not all of it, though, could be described as classic. The final part of Fear (by this I mean in recording sequence, as it is part one lyrically), The Enemy Within, is an experimental track with an almost reggae feel to it in parts, and it does not really work, as well performed as it is. Kid Gloves sounds as if it was thrown onto the album as an afterthought, is messy, and utterly out of phase with all else present. Very much a throwaway track. Even that, though, shines in comparison to Red Lenses, which is such a hotchpotch that it is virtually impossible to describe. The nearest I could state is that it sounds as if all three band members had an individual jam, and the results were thrown together onto the mixing desk after a particularly drunken session.
Rush do not make bad albums. This, to me, though, is probably the weakest of the sequence which had its roots in Permanent Waves, and, as such, is a good album, but one that hinted at the need for a further reinvention in the future.
This is the first post-Floyd album released by Waters. By 1984, "Old Grumpy Boots" (in quotation marks because, apparently, he is anything but in the flesh, as it were) had left the band with which he made untold riches, and, ironically, Nick Mason confirmed that this was the best thing for his old band he could possibly have done, for, if he had "stayed", they would never have made another record.
This album was, in demo form, trailed to the rest of the Floyd when they got together to record the follow-up to Animals, when they were in the direst possible financial straits owing to being ripped off left, right, and centre by Norton Wahlburg. He also played them a demo of "Another Brick", and the rest is, of course, history.
Waters was, though, sufficiently interested in the project to resurrect it for the first part of his plan for world domination on his own. He assembled a rather stellar cast, the most stellar, of course, being Eric Clapton on lead guitar, and, by God, what a contribution the great blues guitarist makes. The whole album, as a result of this contribution, is a damn sight better than it ever would have been in his absence, and he lends to it a thoroughly, well, bluesy feel, dark, almost satanic in places, but also wonderfully evocative and moody.
Only one of the tracks survived to make it to subsequent Waters solo tours, this being the incredible and exceptional 5:06 a.m. (Every Stranger's Eyes), and it is here that you listen to this and really do wish Clapton had stayed a little bit longer (he left the project on the US leg of the subsequent, and not overly financially successful, tour) to see where the collaboration would have gone. It is a track that is steeped with emotional bitterness and sexual repression, and, as with much else on the album, it is nice to hear Waters pull together a concept that has little to do with politics, the war, or dear old dad (and I say this as a huge fan of the man and his music/lyrics, by the way).
The story, such as it is, centres around a chap driving along picking up a rather luscious female hitchhiker (the cover, at the time, really upset the rampant feminist movement), and, in real time, tells us of his desires and dreams surrounding said female, most of which are utterly put down or repressed. One critic, in a very enthusiastic burst at the time, said that Waters would make a fine "quack". Most of the rest of the population thought he should go and see one.
As with much else of what the great man has done, it is impossible to single out too much as standout, because it is a continuous narrative that needs to be listened to in the round, but I, for one, absolutely love the female backing vocals and the whole blues ethos of the album. For no better example of these put together, listen to 4:47 a.m. (The Remains Of Our Love). The single from the album, the title track, is also huge fun.
However, as much as I enjoy this album, you have to say that, on this occasion, Gilmour, Mason, and Wright were right to reject it as a project. In hindsight, I regard this, and the follow up Radio Kaos, as a man unburdening himself from the rigours of a band, he ended up hating, finding himself as an artist in his own right, and building himself up in both ways to the utter masterpiece that Amused To Death was and remains to this day.
It is all rather too bitty to be described as a classic, and an album which I listen to only occasionally these days. But, when I do, I am reminded that it is a good album, and hearing David Sanborn's exceptional saxophone on 4:50 a.m. (Go Fishing) and the whole blues feel, you wonder just what he would have come up with had he continued to develop this theme and way of writing/playing. I think it would have been exceptional.
I will not pretend that this is an essential album for Pink Floyd fans. It is not. What it is, though, is a very good album that will be enjoyed by those who enjoy something "out of the prog box", and class musicianship throughout. Oh, and Clapton/blues fans as well.
It would get a lot better, but it wasn't such a bad start, you know.
The Sentinel is the debut studio album by neo alumni Pallas, released in 1984, although the release date had been put back by EMI, who, apparently, did not think that the initial press contained enough "hits". Many commentators have cited record company "interference" for the relatively poor sales of this work, moving it away from its original state to something altogether more "accessible" in parts. Comparisons have been made, of course, with Marillion's Script released the previous year, with many saying that this could have outshone it. The truth is rather simpler than all of this. The Sentinel simply ain't as good as Script, end of.
Conceptually, it was certainly very bold, telling the story of a search for Atlantis as the cure for east v west wars, and this theme would, of course, be taken up again with the 2011 follow up, XXV. The latter has the advantage of benefitting from 21st century production standards, because this, with the legendary Eddie Offord at the helm, sounds, well, dreadful, with huge chunks lost in the mix. Offord, of course, had ceased to be a "relevant" producer some years before. Presumably, EMI thought he would provide a magic touch and give them another monster prog hit.
Musically, it was certainly accomplished, and it is fair to say that Pallas took their chief influences from a wider range than Marillion or IQ. In here, you can hear the obvious Yes, ELP references, alongside sci-fi era Rush and others. Highlight for me here is the fine keyboard work undertaken by Ronnie Brown, and the album is, in truth, better when it is instrumental, because the vocals of Euan Lowson always grated. The arrival of Alan Reed would, IMO, take the band far further forward.
I think the best thing to say is that this is an important album in the context of progressive music history, was very enjoyable when I first got it, but less so now, and (in whatever decade) nothing near as good as some of its "competitors".
It is a good album, but newcomers to Pallas might be better off starting with the sequel, because that is a heavy belter.