archimedes rock music reviews

This is definitely an album of two halves and as such I would like to treat it as an old fashioned LP with Sides 1 and 2.

Side 1: -

Tumbledown
Mission Statement
Incomplete
Tilted Cross
Faithhealer
Rites of Passage

Side 2: -

Plague of Ghosts

After a solo piano instrumental opening by long term collaborator Mickey Simmonds, giving perhaps a tease of the Side 2 delights to follow, the first two tracks of this album find Fish as we would probably expect. Both are rockers, both reminding me at times of XTC, Marillion’s “Incommunicado” (although far more guitar than keyboard based) and maybe Golden Earring’s “Radar Love”. We do appear to be on very familiar territory here.

We then move to something very different. On first hearing, both of these ballads immediately reminded me of the Neil Young album “Comes a Time”. With joint lead and backing vocals by Elizabeth Antwi, and instrumental backing of acoustic guitar, violin and mandolin, Fish gives us two songs that can only be described as a Celtic / American folk crossover. The difference is in the lyrics. You will not find words of this quality on any American country release – take a close listen to “Tilted Cross” which deals with the subject of landmines left abandoned and unmarked in war zones.

This, in the original Sensational Alex Harvey Band version, is one of my favorite tracks of all time. However Fish has lost all that I loved about it. The bass-driven, almost didgeridoo-like opening of the original has been reduced to a mere mention. The hesitated opening guitar riff is lost altogether. In fact the whole song seems to have lost its soul for the sake of a modern, almost heavy metal, fast feel. A mistake. This track should have been left as a show encore and perhaps a live recording. It has no place on this album.

A classic Fish ballad – Very much in “A Gentleman’s excuse me” vein off the first solo album. The zippos will light up all over German concert halls for this one.

As the song and Side 1 draws to a close a new sound element is introduced. We now enter new unexplored territory as the ambient, almost classical avant-garde, closing section builds and introduces us directly to the opus that is…..

Opening with an ambient landscape of sounds Fish laments that he has at last “found a home in the darkness” And indeed he has.

This is a new Fish; confident about what he is doing, progressing in the true sense of the word, leaving the past ghosts of Marillion far far behind. This track could never have appeared on one of their albums either before or after Fish led his merry men.

In the 20-odd minutes of Plague we progress from ambient textual wasteland to drum’n’bass clubland, from choppy guitar-based funk to modern classical. Fish’s assured vocals are punctuated by an intermittent lament / poem where he uses his natural Scottish accent to great rhythmic and atmospheric affect.

A special mention must go here to Steve Wilson of Porcupine Tree who underneath the ever-changing waves of music provides some very fine Floyd type lead guitar and to keyboardist Micky Simmonds for providing some piano work that would be at home on a Michael Nyman composition.

This is one of the rare times that I have found someone developing, within one track, a range of musical ideas from such differing sources and then successfully combining them to such great atmospheric effect. In fact the only prior examples I can think of are Van Der Graaf Generator’s “Plague of Lighthouse Keepers” (a clue here perhaps) and Kate Bush’s “The Ninth Wave”. And here is perhaps our biggest clue as to the direction that Mr. Dick will take – A Kate Bush for the next decade, always experimenting and using the best available musicians as guests to influence and develop his work.