Marillion’s latest studio release, “F.E.A.R. (F*** Everyone And Run)”, is making a big splash, having hit the UK album chart at No.3, a feat unseen since their 1987 “Clutching At Straws” album, which reached No.2. It’s also at No.9 in Germany, No.8 in Poland, No.5 in Holland, and has similar positions in a number of other European nations. A pretty impressive start, by all means. While some may be quietly wondering if prog has come to rule the world again, let’s try to work out what the well-seasoned proggers has up the sleeve for us this time around.
The first thing that draws attention is the layout of the album. The tracklist consists of three long suites, “El Dorado” (V parts), “The Leavers” (V as well) and “The New Kings” (IV parts), interspersed by standalone tracks “Living in FEAR” and “White Paper”, and ending in “Tomorrow’s New Country”. All the songs on the album are focused on the central theme – the ever-present problems the modern world faces, starting from illegal immigation to European countries and ending with personal fears and the barriers that fear creates in us. The lyrics are pretty straightforward and the band’s (Steve Hogarth’s as the main lyricist) stance on the big issues is as uncompromising as has been since” Brave” (1994).
While having certain similarities in both sound and lyrics to “Sounds That Can’t Be Made” (2012), the new record seems much grittier and more intense in its uncompromising view of pointing out to the world and individuals these problems that never seem to be resolved.
Let’s have a closer look at the tracks.
Steve Hogarth says the first suite in the tracklist, “El Dorado”, is about a sense of foreboding, about this vision of a peaceful existence that all of a sudden gets engulfed by a storm, which is a metaphor for all sorts of drastic changes that are going to change this world and the modern day English society (and not only) for good. The problem of immigration into the EU is particularly emphasised, the issue of ‘the ‘haves’ and ‘have nothings’/The accepted and rejected/We can’t keep letting them in/We can’t keep letting them in?’ The question mark at the end really hangs this unresolved issue in the air. “El Dorado” gets about as intense and tough and uncompromsing as can be, it slaps these harrowing issues right in our faces and makes us stop and ponder. Because there is no way of not responding – ‘Something is cooking inside me/It ain’t ready, but already/ I’m becoming harder to live with’.
The band then go on to explore another intractable problem in this day and age, the dilemma of living an active life or stepping aside as the world goes on, in “The Leavers” suite. Just bother to read the lyrics to the first part and they will instill you with an inevitable sense of transience and shiftiness, such a characteristic sign of our times, where everyone goes somewhere, but so few choose to stay – ‘We will make a show/And then we’ll go/We are the Leavers’. The lyrics obviously describe a band that is touring and how they put a show together, then perform it and then they pack and leave for the next destination. And then there is another kind of us – the Remainers, those who ‘…remain in their homely places/Go home, wash their faces, lay down their heads/As the Leavers take with them their lonely craziness’. An eternal juxtaposition of two approaches to life. The Leavers say ‘We’re born out of recklesness/The thirst for the thrill/We’re revelry’s children/Life’s too short for standing still’. And the Leavers will never see eye to eye with the Remainers, they are the polar opposites (‘You’ll stay and we’ll travel’). What is peculiar about these lyrics is that H does not give a definitive answer as to which of the two lifestyles is best, or admonish the listener to choose either, but he says he wrote those lines ‘as a response to the corrosive effect that travel has on you’. Maybe, there is a Leaver and a Remainer in every person, anyway.
The third – and last – suite, “The New Kings” has a similarly powerful message. According to Hogarth, it expresses ‘how the old systems of democracy have become overwhelmed and compromised by money and corporations. Along with the fact that the division between the rich and the poor is widening all the time’.
As I’ve mentioned, the album also contains three standalone tracks, which tie in naturally and complete the album. Of these, I really like ‘White Paper’ the most. Even though it explores personal feelings, rather than global world issues and such, it really jells nicely with the rest of the album. These personal issues, falling out with the loved one, for example, aren’t they simply a piece of the bigger, global mosaic of all variety of bad things happening? Each song flows naturally into the next, which makes for a very coherent and thus even more powerful musical statement.
In this review I’ve been mostly talking about the lyrical themes on the album, but that is not to say that the musical element is scarce. The individual band members weave their instruments and vocals into a rich, enthralling, unsettling musical experience, driving home their vision of the modern world that is falling apart before our eyes. The quality of their musicianship is, as expected, impeccable, and I believe it is an arduous and useless task to name the best performer on this album. They all weave their voices into one musical statement. That said, I do need to point out that the music sort of completes the lyrics on this album, as was the case on ‘Brave’, and has a kind of supportive role. Which is not to say the music’s not there! Far from it.
And, as usual, remember to give this album multiple spins and listens, before passing your final judgement. Forgive me this platitude, but it will slowly grow on you as it has on me.
By way of rounding up, I am going to say that”F.E.A.R”. is yet another powerful, emotionally charged, musically mature, excitedly progressive record from an ever progressing and uncompromising band. If music were to be named the best medium to make the world a better place by reaching out with the message to everyone listening, then Marillion would be the definitive band on today’s music scene. It is certainly not their first politically and civilizationally charged record and, likely, not their last. While I do find it a bit repetitive in this sense, I have grown to respect H and Co’s adamancy of opinion and their unyielding artistic stance, which only get stronger with the time. In this world of shock and uncertainty the music that helps us face our internal and external fears is what many of us need as much as air.
