Marillion - AHIBD (An Hour Before It’s Dark)Now I know a lot of people on here will instantly knock me for posting a Marillion album, but bear with me please.
Not many bands reach their twentieth release but fewer do it in the rude health that Marillion find themselves after the success of their 2016 album Fuck Everyone And Run, which not only cemented this outfit’s reputation for uncompromising music and lyrical subject matter, it also brought Marillion right back into the public’s consciousness. For those who have followed them right across their intriguing musical journey, what was more surprising about FEAR was how it achieved all of the above while still being a quintessential Marillion album full of sweet melodies, challenging but engaging musical interplay and the utterly spellbinding vocals from Steve ‘h’ Hogarth. Thankfully An Hour Before It’s Dark picks up from exactly where its predecessor left off, as lead single from the album “Be Hard On Yourself” builds a head of steam that leaves you in no doubt as to this album’s intentions. Deep, involved, beautiful, intricate, yet still catchy and memorable, it’s a quite a breathtaking way to kick things off.
“Reprogram The Gene” carries one of those spiralling inner-cores that this band construct so well, the keys from Mark Kelly swirling round your head as h’s vocals swoop and soar as he asks “is there a cure for us…?”, but here Steve Rothery is not to be outdone, his guitar work woven keenly across this tapestry of delights as the mood builds and recedes only to build again - the piano in places taking us back to the Afraid Of Sunlight single “Beautiful” in places, and if any, it’s actually that album that I’m most often reminded of as AHBID is revealed. From there the odd, but lovable thirty-nine second interlude “Only A Kiss” leads neatly as though the incidental music in an Agatha Christie ‘whodunnit?’ into “Murder Machines”, which it has to be said is possibly this release’s most dark, enigmatic shimmer, but then it’s also one of the most immediately sing-alongable.
Destined to be a future live classic, “The Crow And The Nightingale” uses the long tried and tested Marillion trait of starting small and contained and building into something much more expansive but it’s actually the closing pairing of “Sierra Leone” and “Care”, which between them clock in at over thirty minutes, that prove the focal points of this album. The former moves through many passages to get an impassioned message across as bassist Pete Trewavas and drummer Ian Mosley combine an innate subtlety with the ability to drive things on. However, it’s the latter track and its clear message for our times that angels are right here on Earth that truly and completely grabs the imagination.
I’ve been lucky enough to live with An Hour Before It’s Dark for a few good weeks now and I must admit that it has taken numerous plays to truly reveal its inner beauty. If I was going to be super-critical (and, well, that’s what I’m here for), it is possibly the one Marillion album of recent years where I keep feeling like I’m hearing snatches of Marillion songs of days gone by as these new tracks play out (there’s even a cymbal crescendo and vocal interruption that takes us right back to Clutching At Straws territory…), but it really is a minor niggle. And even with that in mind, this really is another quite remarkable release from a truly remarkable band.
Give it a go.
Here’s ‘Care’ for you, written for the NHS nurses struggling with the COVID-19 cases…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA7Dl7TTrOQ
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
