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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Emotional & full of energy, 19 Dec 1999
By A Customer
Following on from the largely acoustic-based "This Strange Engine", Marillion's 10th album, "Radiation", marks a return to a more electric, more experimental recording. More than ever before, the rulebook has been thrown away, and the result is a loud, 'buzzy' album that both wears its heart on its sleeve and isn't afraid to rock out.Uncharacteristic opener, "Costa Del Slough" is a slice of whimsical Noel Coward-style comedy, but is forgotten immediately in the wake of the loud and belligerent "Under The Sun", all frantic guitar riffery and rapid-fire percussion. A further wall of noise then hits with "The Answering Machine", a song about communication breaking down in a relationship, which ends with a teeth-wrenching fuzzed-up bout of keyboard wrestling from keysman Mark Kelly. A typically huge-sounding Marillion song - not at all based on the life story of a certain Mancunian pop act! - follows with "Three Minute Boy" before the pace slows again for the heartbreaking ballad "Now She'll Never Know". This is a truly beautiful song, Steve Hogarth's vocals every bit as emotional as ever. More high-grade drama follows with the single "These Chains", and a full-on blues excursion the like of which the band have never attempted before in "Born To Run" (no relation to the Springsteen song of the same name!), Steve Rothery's guitar playing proving to be more than a match for this latest stylistic departure. The album ends with two very different songs: the powerful rocker "Cathedral Wall", a song about the horrors of insomnia, and the atmospheric and meandering epic, "A Few Words For The Dead", which tells us why tradition is not always a good thing, and why we have so much to learn about what is worth hanging onto in life. "Radiation" may puzzle a few fans with its markedly different sound, but in terms of the material, this is one of Marillion's strongest recordings of recent years. If this album had been produced by a new band, they'd be getting rave reviews. Listen without prejudice!
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