It\u2019s no secret, I suppose, that I kind of like Marillion. They\u2019re the BOGO progressive rock band with two completely different sounds depending on who is handling the lead vocals.<\/p>\n
Their first lead vocalist Fish\u2014originally known as Derek William Dick\u2014was a flamboyant, burning presence on their first four albums. We could write an entire column on all the rumours about why Fish quit Marillion, but I\u2019m just not quite that obsessed with them; suffice it to say, in Fish\u2019s own words, \u201cI was an arsehole\u2026\u201d After departing Marillion he began a solo career that, while uneven, was never dull.<\/p>\n
His second solo CD Internal Exile<\/i> didn\u2019t do well, and I have a pretty decent idea why. Internal<\/i> feels like a set of cuts from four or five CDs, rather than a coherent whole. That\u2019s not to say there aren\u2019t moments that work; it just means that Fish was still finding his voice as a solo performer.<\/p>\n
Now, there are a couple of important considerations to bear in mind when you listen to Fish. The first is that his upper register is\u2026 distinctive. He doesn\u2019t sound like Geddy Lee, but it\u2019s likely going to garner the same sort of \u2018love it or hate it\u2019 reaction. Secondly, his music is almost always driven, staccato, and almost manic; words like \u201clanguid\u201d or \u201cballad\u201d rarely if ever come to mind.<\/p>\n
That said, there are some good tracks on Internal Exile<\/i>. \u201cJust Good Friends\u201d is a thought-provoking and sweet song about revealing your love for someone; \u201cLucky\u201d is an excellent snapshot of one man\u2019s life and the choices he makes; and \u201cInternal Exile\u201d is both a condemnation of the United Kingdom\u2019s treatment of Scotland and a celebration of the spirit of that country. (Fish namechecks several Edinburgh locations.)<\/p>\n
Some of the tracks don\u2019t succeed, however. \u201cFamily Man\u201d is the veritable languid ballad, but fails to evoke any emotion in me. \u201cCredo\u201d covers some of the same ground as \u201cInternal Exile\u201d but less successfully, and \u201cSomething In The Air\u201d is an apparent attempt at a dance tune that never should have seen the light of day.<\/p>\n
Fish is always interesting, whatever he does. But on Internal Exile<\/i>, he doesn\u2019t quite get it together. It\u2019s worth checking out, perhaps, but don\u2019t expect brilliance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":34138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7456],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-45969","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-fish","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45969"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}