Album of the Day

Holidays in Eden, by Marillion (1991): Holidays was Marillion's attempt to get back into the commercial big time after Steve Hogarth came on board. As a result, it's one of the band's weaker efforts overall. Still, it contains two bona fide Marillion classics, "Splintering Heart" and the "This Town" trilogy. "Cover My Eyes" and the title track are decent up tempo rockers and "The Collection" is certifiably creepy. But I can pretty much live without the rest. Still, even a bad Marillion album is better than most rock/pop stuff, as evidenced by the next album in the rotation, the woeful Word of Mouth by Mike and the Mechanics (which ironically, or coincidentally, shares the same producer, mixer, and masterer as Holidays).