Member:
ffroyd
(Profile)
(All Album Reviews by ffroyd)
Date:
8/12/2000
Format:
CD (Album)
Another excellent album from the not-so-bonny Scotsman.
He's got a few new blokes in his band this time around. His new main keyboardist, Tony Turrell, plays a fierce synth and the bassist Steve Vantsis compliments the band very well. We also see the return of an old friend Mickey Simmonds who co-wrote the songs "Tumbledown" and "Rites of Passage."
His singing has never been better and as always, his lyrics are extremely poignant, with a bone-chilling emphasis on every phrase. He dabbles a little bit into the fantastic à la Peter Sinfield as, for example, on "Digging Deep" where one verse is "A tethered goat bleats from the corner of the graveyard where the lizards hang motionless as the angels of stone above them / Their broken wings throwing long shadows into the grass where the scorpions hide / The tigers are running out of the jungle." I have no idea what it means but it sounds cool.
Longtime associate Mark Wilkinson did the cover and other illustrations in the booklet, which should have been all in color. He's been with Fish since the first Marillion album and this time around it's not a beautiful painting but an intricate series of multimedia designs. I guess the artwork was just too good because there is an accompanying booklet that you can order. I bet that's all in color.
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