2022 Album Roundup Series: The Albums of April

New music in rotation for April, 2022, including:

Mononeon - Put On Earth For You (2022) Tears for Fears - The Tipping Point (2022) Tom McGuire & the Brassholes - Tom McGuire & the Brassholes (2019) Wolf Alice - Blue Weekend (2021) Nerija - Blume (2019) Marillion - An Hour Before It's Dark (2022)

Relevant Links:

Post on Mononeon Series on early Marillion

Swimming With The Fish Part 4: Clutching at Straws

Review and discussion on Marillion’s 1987 album Clutching at Straws

Relevant Links

Part 1 – Script for a Jester’s Tear

Part 2 – Fugazi

Part 3 – Misplaced Childhood

Jan Hendrick Fennema’s channel

Swimming With The Fish Part 3: Misplaced Childhood

Review and discussion on Marillion’s landmark 1985 album Misplaced Childhood

Relevant Links

Part 1 of this series 

Part 2 of this series

Swimming With the Fish Part 2: Marillion's Fugazi

Review and discussion on Marillion’s Fugazi (1984).

Relevant links:

Part I of this series: Script for a Jester’s Tear

A text post on a more recent album: F.E.A.R.

Another text post addressing Anoraknophobia

Swimming With the Fish Part 1: Marillion's "Script for a Jester's Tear."

Review and discussion on Marillion’s 1983 landmark, Script for a Jester’s Tear

Relevant Links:

A couple of older text posts on Hogarth-led Marillion albums

Anoraknophobia

F.E.A.R.

In the Election Fallout: Marillion's F.E.A.R.

In my very first post for this year, I described what I saw as a disturbing undercurrent of our culture, one that thinks that flags flying at half mast mean nothing and that guns can solve the problem of people being shot. The perceived solution to this problem at the time was tighter gun controls, but I argued, and still do, that this only treats the symptom. Instead, I suggested the perhaps idealistic and radical idea of voluntarily surrendering firearms in solidarity with all the innocents that were shot and killed by people who saw the solution to their insecurities in a gun’s trigger. Predictably, this idea did not gain any footing. Months later in October, however, it was gratifying to find that F.E.A.R., Marillion’s most recent release, featured a song espousing a similar viewpoint.



As the year has progressed, however, it seems like the attitude towards guns and their use have become the least of our country’s issues. The devastating results of the election has given strength to what was once an undercurrent.

I was one of many that struggled with my vote during this cycle. I was a staunch advocate of Bernie Sanders, and I was distraught when he did not get the nomination. I looked very hard at Jill Stein. I connected with the Green platform, the even though I had reservations about her capacity to govern as president.  Given that Texas electoral votes have traditionally gone to the Republican party, I was convinced that I should cast my vote for Stein. Then a rumor emerged that Texas could turn blue. I could not, in all good conscience, sleep well at night knowing that I could have had any sway at all in a swing vote, so I decided to vote for Hillary.

Once I got used to the idea, it became clear to me that, despite having some blemishes in her career, Hillary was clearly the best available candidate. Her respectable experience and tenacity made it easier to get over my own feelings about Bernie’s treatments in the primaries, and in the end I was satisfied that I made the best decision for the country.

Clearly, however, things did not go my way. Not even close. Now, like many people I know, I have to wrestle with whether or not the America that my kids are pledging allegiance to every day reflects the values that I and my family hold dear.



Despite having an indelible impact on my teenage years, I have repeatedly described Marillion’s output as “spotty.” I tread warily when I hear they have a new release, but early reviews of F.E.A.R. hailed the album as a defining album of the Marillion’s later years. Although F.E.A.R. does not quite reach the consistent heights of Brave or Marbles, it contains many musically outstanding moments. Steve Rothery’s solos are crafted from simple motifs that blossom into expansive melodies that recall the slowhanded guitar work of David Gilmour while Mark Kelly’s ever-increasing proficiency with keyboard sound and patch design plays a key role. Ian Mosely and Peter Trawabas are more transparent in their contributions, but they are absolutely necessary to Marillion’s continued musical evolution.



The album shines, however, in its message and relevance, particularly in light of current events. It is a 21st century protest album that addresses contemporary power imbalances and the social symptoms we face as a result of living with them.  This is a heavy endeavor, and Fish’s legacy inevitably (and perhaps unfairly) draws attention to Marillion’s lyrics.  Hogarth, in concept and delivery, rises to the occasion.  F.E.A.R. carries the anger that recalls the countercultural mission statement of the band at their inception.  Although there is a tendency towards redundancy in the lyric structures, there is a possibility that this is intended to drive home the album's overall message.

Despite this imperfection, the album’s relevance is compelling. Its interesting that Marillion, a U.K. based band, began writing the album over a year ago and that it could be so meaningful today. I strongly relate to F.E.A.R. as a US citizen dealing with the fallout of Trump’s election, but the conditions that we are experiencing are global. I am not happy about the results, but I have lived through other administrations whose policies did not reflect my own. In those times, I have been able to shake my head, disagree, and move on. This time it is different because of the hateful closed-mindedness that it has empowered, and I am anxious about the impact that it will have on my kids.

Transatlantic's "Kaleidoscope" and a Tale from the Sea

When I stumbled across Transatlantic in the late 90s through my sputtering dial-up internet, I had already been a longstanding fan of Marillion and had developed a healthy respect for Dream Theater. I was completely unaware, however, that other progressive rock bands existed. My eyes opened, and suddenly The Flower Kings and Spock’s Beard displaced my power pop agenda, rekindling an interest in the style that I so strongly identified with in my youth. This carried me for quite a while, but a huge rupture occurred when Neal Morse announced that he would be leaving Spock’s Beard to more ardently pursue his religious beliefs. While Spock’s Beard sauntered on, it seemed that without Morse, Transatlantic would cease to exist.

I was quite surprised, then, when a couple of years ago, Transatlantic announced their reformation. They concomitantly released The Whirlwind, their finest work to date and an album that which solidified their identity as a self-sufficient band, distinct from the member’s home groups. It would have been a fitting final act for this “supergroup” to end on. If anything, however, Transatlantic seems to be gaining more momentum. Early this year, they released Kaleidoscope, their fourth studio album. Kaleidoscope isn’t as immediately impressive as The Whirlwind, but it is still an incredible statement that displays Transatlantic’s evolution into true masters of the symphonic style, at least as it appeared at the end of the 90s.



Initially, Kaleidoscope seemed to be a throwback to Transatlantic’s early releases. Morse’s characteristic compositional style provided the framework upon which the other members realize their own contributions. Certainly, the album’s overall structure, with two multi-movement epics and a few shorter form songs, has more in common with their first two albums than the hour-long song cycle that makes up The Whirlwind. Like its predecessor, though, Transatlantic’s lyrics have a noticeably heartfelt conviction (not reflected in their lip-synching abilities) that was not always present in Morse’s earlier work.



Despite Morse’s influence on the album’s large-scale construction, however, Kaleidoscope is a step forward for the entire group in terms of their unified chemistry. Gone are the days where Transatlantic ground its gears between the stylistic preferences of its discrete members. The album definitively consolidates Transatlantic as a unique, distinctive band, with members displaying an intuitive understanding of each other’s compositional and technical strengths. Like a lot of the best progressive rock, Kaleidoscope takes some patience. There is a lot of material on the album, and it really has to be “learned” for its vast harmonic and melodic nuance to have full impact.

Kaleidoscope’s prominence in my current listening just happens to coincide with an increased interest in progressive rock in general due to the release of Yes’ new album Heaven and Earth. While my opinions on the album are best relegated to their own post, it is safe to say that the progressive community is sharply divided on the album, due in no small part to Jon Anderson’s absence as lead vocalist. This topic has been a hot one for several years now, and I would imagine hung like an awkward cloud on the Progressive Nation at Sea, last year’s at-sea progressive rock festival.  For all the attention that Yes has been enjoying, thanks to Transatlantic, Anderson was afforded his own chance to shine at this event.



The Revealing Science of God is the side-long opening track from Tales from Topographic Oceans, an album that is notorious in Yes' catalog for its conceptual density.  The current iteration of Yes is forging their own path, and it is unlikely that this composition will find its way onto their set list in the near future. With Transatlantic as his backing band, however, Jon Anderson performs as good of a rendition of this piece as one could wish for. 

Particularly with limited rehearsal time, performing a song as complex as this one requires more than just cohesion - it takes a cooperative awareness cultivated in mutual respect and trust.  With the synergy that they exhibit both here and on Kaleidoscope, however, I see virtually no limit to their mastery.  They could conceivably function as the “house band” of multi-band progressive festivals, backing any number of walk-on musical legends with deferential, high-energy performances of classic progressive material.

North Atlantic Oscillation's Shimmering Light in the Fog

For a prog rock album to surpass the status of guilty pleasure or, even worse, token in my library, it can’t rest on the laurels of the past too much. Admittedly, I have my share of favorite retro-prog projects, but they are often consumed quickly and discarded. For this reason, I generally take greater notice when an indie or alternative site calls attention to a new prog band than when a progressive rock site heaps praises on the next big thing. Every now and then, though, a group comes along that breaks the expectations of what progressive rock is, but whose proggish adventurousness can’t be ignored by the more conservative communities. The last time this happened, I discovered Mew, a band that has evolved into one of my all-time favorites. I still lurk on progressive rock sites for rare instances like this.

Several months ago, I read a review of North Atlantic Oscillation’s Fog Electric that piqued my interest. It was, by its own admission, somewhat vague, but it indicated that instrumental histrionics were downplayed in lieu of songcraft in a “modern take on progressive rock.”  These descriptors begged me to dig further, so I looked up the video for Soft Coda.

Its triumphant, expansive tone captured my attention. Indeed, North Atlantic Oscillation did not fit the classical prog paradigm. They did, however, seem to have a distinctive sound and an exploratory veneer. Still, I was wary, so I subjected Fog Electric to a somewhat uncharacteristic vetting process. I began running the entire album on low-fi Spotify during late night chores. Only after several months did it finally earn its way into rotation.

What immediately set the band apart from a lot of current progressive music I run into is the translucent vocal approach of guitarist and keyboardist Sam Healy. I readily admit that Peter Gabriel was, and is, a conceptual genius, but after 40 years of reinvention, his flamboyant approach to progressive showmanship has resulted in some embarrassing melodrama. North Atlantic Oscillation neatly sidesteps this issue with a crystalline falsetto that has more in common with Brian Wilson than Fish. When it is stacked in harmony (and it often is), comparisons with the Beach Boys are impossible to ignore.

Like a lot of progressive rock, it takes a little familiarity for the listener to gain a foothold on what is brewing beneath the surface of Fog Electric. It is, however, not so aloof and self-indulgent that it holds the listener at arm's length. On the contrary, it’s immediately quite inviting and consistent. Granted, there are bombastic Marillion-esque bridges, Hackett-inspired guitar interludes, and cleverly crafted asymmetrical time signatures that are clearly derived from the progressive rock canon. By and large, however, North Atlantic Oscillation also compares quite favorably with more subdued explorations from contemporary torchbearers like M83, Sigur Ros, and Radiohead.



In actuality, many of these comparisons are feeble at best. During the vetting process, it was not so easy to draw a straight line between Fog Electric and anything else I was listening to, which is what made it so compelling. The more I unraveled it, the more influences I seemed to add to the list, until finally I decided that perhaps North Atlantic Oscillation might be onto something a bit more unique than I was giving them credit for. Fog Electric is, I think, something special: a much-needed, genuinely fresh, creative statement in the progressive rock genre that could also serve a much broader audience.

I Remember 9-11: Oysterhead and Marillion

I was walking out of first period after a pretty good jazz band rehearsal when one of my students approached me and said “New York is on fire.”  Now, it’s not unusual to hear weird things like that in the halls of a 7-12 grade campus, so I was a little incredulous.  This kid was a senior who played lead trumpet in my jazz group, though, so I found it difficult to believe that he would spread exaggerated and unfounded rumors.

Judging from the buzz in second period, it was apparent that something was, indeed, going on.  In 2001, however, my campus was not equipped with a TV in every room, and certainly not in the band hall.  I had no way to confirm or refute what was happening.  I would glance in the library every period when I took the roll sheets to the office, but I couldn’t connect these brief glimpses of billowing smoke and chaotic streets into a cohesive narrative.

As teachers, we were instructed to continue with regular classes unless explicitly told otherwise.  As a result, I experienced 9-11 mostly through the students’ eyes as they struggled to make sense of the fractured images and soundbites of the day.  By 7th period, I certainly believed the gravity of the situation, but remained skeptical of the details.  I rushed home at 4:00 and, on my dial-up internet, I downloaded footage (and probably a few viruses) of the two towers going down using Kazaa.  Mortified, I repeated them endlessly.  I finally tore myself away and turned the TV to anything my antenna could pick up (I still don’t believe in cable, by the way) and remained glued to the set for the remainder of the evening.  While I struggled to comprehend the events and reactions on 9-11, I numbly began to work on a painting of Thelonius Monk that I never finished.

 While the American world was changing, I was coming to terms with another change that seemed important at the time, but receded in light of the events of the day. Primus, one of my favorite bands, announced a “permanent hiatus” earlier that year.  Although I was increasingly ambivalent about the band’s output, I certainly did not want to see them break up.  Later in the year, however, bassist Les Claypool formed the “supergroup” Oysterhead with Police drummer Stewart Copeland and Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio.  If any band were to be a home for Claypool outside of Primus, it would have been Oysterhead.

I was fascinated by the chemistry between these three very distinctive musicians as it played itself out on their singular release The Grand Pecking Order.  I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Copeland redeem himself on the drum throne after his stint with 90s yawn-rock outfit Animal Logic.  The material on the album was a little slapdash, but since the band billed itself as a “jam-band” outfit, the band’s fans considered it a loose frame of reference for Oysterhead’s mission statement. 

Connecting with the fans through newly emerging virtual conduits was becoming more common in 2001, and the other album that was rolling when the towers fell owed a lot to these new connections.  Marillion’s Anoraknophobia was funded entirely by fan donations through the band’s website, which was a pretty innovative approach for the time.  Distribution of the album was still patchy in the US, but, merely months before flying changed forever, I picked up a copy in a UK record store during a summer trip in Europe.  I was carefully considering the the ways in which the band's hard-fought financial independence gave them the opportunity to make an album relatively free of executive expectations. 

After original vocalist Fish left Marillion in the late 80s, the band’s track record had been spotty at best.  Singer Steve Hogarth took over in 1990, and since then they made a couple of great albums, a few bad ones, and very little in between.  In 2001, Anoraknophobia made a good impression on me, and even today I think that it is more poignant than cliché.  Still, it doesn’t represent the pinnacle of Marillion's work, especially with Hogarth at the helm.  It's pretty good, but not the best.

I once alluded to music’s capacity to provide a space away from the everyday, and I think that my memories of these albums are whitewashed with this escapist potential.  Both The Grand Pecking Order and Anoraknophobia seem to float oddly aloof from my emotional effort to come to grips with 9-11 and its aftermath, even though I remember listening to them.  They seem to remind me of the life I had surrounding 9-11 rather than the catastrophe itself.  The images of New York and my concern for the friends I had living there seem starkly silent in my mind as I look back today, ten years later.