Artist Spotlight: Marillion

Today I would like to feature a band that has been one of my favourites for more than ten years, and that has been around for much longer than that. Marillion got their start in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England in 1979. Through a few lineup changes (the most high-profile of which was the departure of original vocalist Fish in 1988 after 4 studio albums, with Steve Hogarth stepping on board to take over lead vocal duties), they have released 14 studio albums, numerous live albums, and are currently at work on their next studio album.

In Marillion's early years, their music was primarily progressive rock-based, drawing influence from bands like Genesis and Yes. With Hogarth, the band has managed to retain this core sound while also incorporating a more contemporary sound into their music, drawing comparisons to bands like Radiohead and Coldplay. No matter which album I listen to, I always find their music very melodic and emotional. Perhaps more than any other artist I know of, the words and music of Marillion are woven seamlessly together; a change in the dynamics of the music is reflected by a change in the tone of the lyrics, and vice versa.

The individual band members are all very talented at what they do. Steven Rothery is an exceptionally gifted guitarist with the ability to make his guitar sing, not unlike Pink Floyd's David Gilmour. Bassist Pete Trewavas and drummer Ian Mosley form an incredibly tight rhythm section, with the bass and drums often locked perfectly in time with each other. Keyboardist Mark Kelly is equally at home adding lush textures to songs and also taking the lead with virtuoso solos. And Fish and Hogarth, though like night and day compared to each other, have always provided emotional performances of thought-provoking lyrics. Taken all together, they are able to take listeners on an epic, emotional journey.

As far as free music is concerned, you won't find any complete albums available from Marillion like many of the other artists I feature on this blog. However, if you know where to look, then you can find a good sampling of their current music available for download, as well as a free sampler CD (as long as certain conditions are met - more on that in a bit). In this post, I've done most of the work for you and compiled links to a few sources for some great, free Marillion music.

• First of all, take a look at the band's official MySpace page, where you can currently find a pair of tracks from each of their two latest albums: "Somewhere Else" and "Thankyou Whoever You Are" from 2007's Somewhere Else, and "You're Gone" and "Neverland" from 2004's Marbles.
• Marillion's official website has a downloads page where you can download a couple of radio performances, which include acoustic versions of both older and newer songs.
• last.fm currently hosts another handful of free Marillion tracks. These tracks come from a compilation called Crash Course, which is updated periodically with new tracks as the band releases new material. In addition to the songs listed above, Crash Course currently also contains "The Great Escape" (from 1994's concept album Brave), "Afraid of Sunlight" (the title track from their 1995 album), "Estonia" (an extremely emotional track from 1996's This Strange Engine, inspired by the sinking of the Estonia passenger ferry in 1994, a disaster which claimed 852 lives), "Fantastic Place" (from Marbles), and "Faith" (from Somewhere Else). You can also check the band's last.fm page to see if anything else is available (look for the words "full track" next to a song title).  (NOTE: the Crash Course download seems to have been moved to iLike)
• Finally, if you are completely new to Marillion, then you may qualify for a free CD version of Crash Course. Just check out the Crash Course page on the official site, read the terms and conditions, and if you're able to receive one, just sign up for it. I've already received several things from Marillion's website, so I don't qualify for Crash Course, but it looks like it would be a good introduction to the band's newer material.
  

As great as these songs are, they really only scratch the surface of the world of Marillion. Like a lot of great bands, Marillion's music is best experienced in its original format, i.e. as complete albums, especially since many of their albums are conceptual in nature. If you like what you hear, I would highly suggest checking out an album or two. If you want some recommendations as to where to start, please leave a comment and I would be more than happy to help you out.

Happy listening!

URLs:
http://www.marillion.com
http://www.myspace.com/marillion
http://www.marillion.com/fans/downloads.htm
http://www.last.fm/music/Marillion/Crash+Course (no longer free - try http://www.ilike.com/artist/Marillion/album/Crash+Course instead) 
http://www.last.fm/music/Marillion
http://www.marillion.com/music/racket/crash.htm

Free CD: The Pax Cecilia - Blessed are the Bonds

NOTE: The offer for a free CD is no longer available, but the entire album can still be downloaded in MP3 format.

For nearly a decade, it has been really easy to find music for free on the Internet. A lot of this music is not legally available for free, a fact which got early filesharing services like Napster into trouble. But there is also a lot of music that is legally available to download for free; for example, a lot of artists offer a few free songs on either their official website or their MySpace page. If one looks hard enough, it is possible to find entire albums available for free; they may not be the latest releases from the most popular artists, but oftentimes an album by a little-known artist can end up becoming an all-time favourite. When treasures like this can be found for free, they are even more special.

One of the biggest, most pleasant surprises I found in the past year was an album by The Pax Cecilia entitled Blessed are the Bonds. The album is available for free from the band's website. What makes this offer extraordinary is that they are giving away the CD for free - as in, not a digital download, but an actual, physical CD with packaging, artwork, and liner notes. I don't know how often they send out the CDs; mine took somewhere between a few weeks and a couple of months to arrive - long enough that I was wondering what a CD was doing in my mailbox when I found it there.

That's all well and good, but what about the music? Getting a free CD is nice, but surely it isn't worth much if the music isn't any good, or if it's poorly produced. Thankfully, Blessed are the Bonds suffers from no such problems. The entire album sounds beautiful, with plenty of dynamics that allow the quiet and loud parts to stand in contrast to one another, avoiding the "wall of noise" that plagues so many modern albums. The music is basically metal, but there are enough acoustic, piano, and string-based passages to give it a very unique sound that is quite unlike anything I've ever heard. There are parts of the album that remind me of Devil Doll and Tool (for example, on the first track, "The Tragedy", some of the string arrangements and the vocal style, respectively), but these parts are brief, and soon the music spirals out into some new sonic territory. It's definitely not the type of music one normally runs across, so for that reason alone it is worth checking out; the beautiful packaging and artwork are a great bonus.

Blessed are the Bonds is currently available from The Pax Cecilia's website; just click the Contacts link for their email address so you can send them your mailing address, and then keep an eye on your mailbox. Once your CD arrives, please come back here and post a comment to let me know what you think of it.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2007 was a good one for you and that 2008 will be even better; I'll do my part to help out by continuing to provide you with great music all year long.

URLs:

http://www.paxcecilia.com/index.html