Albums of Last Friday

Script for a Jester's Tear (1983) and Seasons End (1989), by Marillion: Through sheer coincidence, these two albums were back-to-back in the playing order on Friday. That's somewhat appropriate, as they are both milestone albums in the band's career.

Script . . . is the band's first album and served as a blue print for countless neo-prog imitators to come. Heavily in debt to early Genesis, with a touch of Pink Floyd and (lyrically and vocally, at least) Van der Graff Generator, the music suffers from some overly sterile production and pedestrian drumming from Mick Pointer. Thankfully, Pointer was shown the door shortly thereafter and more interesting live versions of all these tunes (IIRC) exist.

Fast forward six years - the band has become big in Europe and Fish, the charismatic lead vocalist and face of the band has "gone solo in the game," so to speak. Most of Seasons End was finished musically before the new guy, Steve Hogarth (aka "h") came on board. His run with the band, to the surprise of many, would last for nearly two decades and see the group continue to produce a string of excellent, if overlooked, albums. There's very little of the Script . . . style still evidence on Seasons End, but it's still unmistakably Marillion. Which says something about the musical unit the other guys had formed in the prior years.