Marillion – Happiness Is The Road

Releasedate: 20-10-2008; Label: Intact Records
By: Sabine van Gameren

Marillion is for those who are into the classics not an unfamiliar name. For those who have not heard of the band before, Marillion is a progrock band. In the early 80’s they started the band and since then, sold many albums world wide. The band had their biggest success with the song Keyleight. On October 20th the band will release their 15th studio album “Happiness Is The Road”.

In the past the band often got pleased by their loyal fans supporting them to finance their album. They actually ordered the album already before it was recorded. “Happiness Is The Road” is an album that will please the fans for sure, since it is not one but two discs, together 110 minutes of music.

The first disc is called: “Essence” is a collection of calm and relaxed songs, where the atmosphere is quite dark somehow if you feel like listening to the lyrics. I did not really hear back the typical Marillion sound, it seems like they like to try out a lot of different things, but for people who are not really font of this genre anyway it might become quite boring. The calm sounds go on and on and I am struggling with myself not to skip a few songs.

The second disc is called: “The Hard Shoulder” and please me way more. Some more melodic elements come in and the atmosphere turns to be more mellow. Progrock meets indie music on “The Hard Shoulder”, where the first disc was more for a background sound, this part makes way more sense. Where the instruments they normally use get more priority over experimenting with the some more “exotic” instruments I finally get why this band has so many loyal fans all over the world.

The band brought a wide perception of their possibilities on “Happiness Is The Road” where the first part is not as interesting as the second part. But all together it is bearable. I personally would use the shuffle option on my stereo a lot, since the order of the songs as how it is spread over the two discs really let me down.

Line Up:
Steve Hogarth (alias “H”) – Vocals
Steve Rothery – Guitars
Pete Trewavas – Bass
Mark Kelly – Keys
Ian Mosley – Drums

Links:
Marillion Official