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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Hoisted by their own petard, 2 Jun 2001
By A Customer
The last thing Marillion need is freedom. Take them away from a major label, or at least the need to communicate to an audience beyond their loyal fan base, and you get patchy, undynamic records like everything they've done since leaving EMI. And, sadly, this one too.And for all Marillion's experimentalism, call it prog-rock or whatever, actually their best work has always been recognisably 'pop'. Listen to Misplaced Childhood and you'll hear ideas that are given no longer than they need; simple sketches stuck together to make a complex tapestry. Listen to Afraid Of Sunlight - by some distance the best record they've recorded with Steve Hogarth - and you can feel the musicianship of a technically gifted rock band being filtered through the demands of pop. That record saw Marillion combine passion, craft and (most important of all for a band full - and I don't mean this sarcastically - of so many good ideas) self-discipline. Since Anoraknophobia sees them reunited with Afraid Of Sunlight producer Dave Meegan, hopes were high that the 'rillion had hit the jackpot again. But not by a long chalk. Oh, there's great ideas here, lovely moments - the first few minutes of Fruit Of The Wild Rose are gorgeous, likewise Quartz and This is the 21st Century. But it's all so long! And it lacks the urgency that all great music(do forgive me) possesses, fast ir slow, loud or soft, whether it's a Bill Evans piano solo, The Band swinging their way through Up On Cripple Creek, Radiohead angsting their way through their last few albums. For Marillion at their best, see Beautiful, King and the title track on Afraid of Sunlight. Marillion are a really talented band. But all art exists in context. Marillion, no longer a pop band, lack that. Yet if they're not pop, what are they? They're too smart to just be a rock band, but they're not prog (except in their lack of editing skills), they're not trip hop and they're certainly not soul, although this album sees them touch on all these bases. A disappointment, but perhaps also a stepping stone away from the Marillion of old and towards discovering a new identity. At the moment they're still playing with this new sound - which may explain the length of the songs (so very, very overextended). But just as Afraid of Sunlight was a refinement of the beauty but bombast of Brave, let's hope Anoraknophobia is the prequel to an album that takes this album's strengths but applies a razor to its indulgences.
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