Happiness is the Road
 Introduction:
Album fifteen is another double album, produced by the band & Mike Hunter.
The first CD is a concept album entitled Essence.
Essence is partly based on ideas from a book recommended to Steve
Hogarth during the Somewhere Else tour, called 'The
Power of Now'
by
Eckhart Tolle and concerns the notion of embracing the moment rather than
dwelling on the past or future.
The album is a continuous
piece of music a la Brave, with linking pieces connecting the main
songs. Stylistically, the music is extremely lush and dense, taking in a
myriad of different styles including soul and dub as well as more
traditional Marillion territory. There is a lot of textures, particularly
from the keyboards (some obvious reference points being Blue Nile and Sigur
Ros), and not huge amounts of trad-style Rothery soloing - though what there
is is fantastic. There's also a lot of vocal harmonies; it'll be interesting
to see how this works live. Will Mark have a mic again..? This is possibly
the most overall upbeat album the band have ever released, yet it contains
so many moods that it's very difficult to put it into words with any real
expectation of doing the music justice. Not all of the songs on this album
require explanations.
The second CD is entitled
The Hard Shoulder, and is a collection of unconnected songs of a
generally more rocky nature. It would be a strong stand alone album in its
own right. There's much more rocky stuff on this album, but the lush
orchestration remains a major feature of the word. There's also a sixties
vibe to some of the stuff here, though not necessarily the obvious
touchstones.
Lyrically, both albums
contain some very intimate words, and Hogarth frequently uses sotto voce
that gives the songs a feel of a confessional. This is greatly aided by
some of the subject matter; there are songs that anyone with even the
slightest intimacy with Hogarth's life must necessarily interpret as
personal revelations and they can be uncomfortable. It's for this
reason that the album ends with a song about the dangers of packaging your
pain for consumption as art; Real Tears for Sale.
Not all the songs on these albums warranted explanations.
Cover notes: The cover is taken from the illustration for Asylum
Satellite #1 by new artist Antonio Seijas. Antonio had previously
created work for Gazpacho, who release records on Marillion's Intact label.
Antonio's website can be found here.
The Essence cover features a glowing white satellite shape covered
in what look like domestic TV aerials superimposed in front of a red
photo manipulation that recalls the backgrounds used for the No One Can
single from the Six of One album. The Hard Shoulder cover, is
identical save that the background is purpley-blue.
The music is to be issued as two separate albums with the colours as
above, and also in a boxed set. The cover art for the box set has not been
revealed at the time of writing, but is expected to be a version of
the red satellite.
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