Marillion-Holidays in Eden (1991)

In this LP it can be said that Marillion had already become “another” formation very different from the one recorded by the four albums in studies with Fish. The giant singer's departure marked a before and after in the group's history; interestingly, as in other bands, people of a certain age tend to remember Marillion as "the Fish band", when in fact he was much less time than his replacement singer Steve Hoggart, nowadays. a talented man who never wanted to be an imitator or even a continuation of Fish, even though in the round he published with Marillion after the departure of Fish, the essential “Season's End”, that air could still be seen Marillion stale, so to speak.

The truth is that that old air disappears completely in this great work, a work that would already set the tone for later albums such as the incredible “Marbles” or “Brave”, although later Marillion's career fell into some low points of creativity, which is always excusable in some artists who have been publishing albums for so long.

"Holidays in Eden" contains some top themes, quiet themes of a soft and caressing atmosphere, if you think well above what they had done in the 80 groups that tried to convert to the melodic progressive like Saga or Barclay James Harvest, whose releases of those years are well below what Marillion achieved in this album. I recommend everyone to listen to songs as sublime as “The party”, exquisite, or the one that gives title to the album and from which a single was made in which –and this data in my view is curious- Hoggart appears with an image very similar to the one that Peter Gabriel had when he also experienced his changes and became, precisely again, a pop star. Thus, the destinies of Marillion, the artistic destinations, we mean, seem to be linked to the evolution of Peter Gabriel: avant-garde artists (to some extent, of course) in their beginnings, such as the Genesis of Peter Gabriel; and then in high octane pop band when Fish left them, just like Genesis when Phil Collins took command.

In my opinion, there is nothing reprehensible in this change when it is done with taste, delicacy and respect for themselves as musicians and for fans as consumers. In fact, a group as little suspicious as Spock’s Beard did exactly the same thing on their album “Octane”: that is, moving from progressive band to high-ranking pop group.