I genuinely played that album once and ended my interest in Marillion at that point - the band made a dumb move - they forced Fish out when recording the follow up to Clutching at Straws (most of which appeared on his Wilderness album) and that was that. The Seasons End album contains a lot of the musical elements of the original 5th album project which is why its OK. The next album Holidays in Eden was very commercial - Brave was a desperate attempt to return to Prog roots and really wasn't very credible.
Hmmm, isn't the band version that Fish tried to force Mark Kelly out, and given he'd forced bass player, drummer, and earlier keyboard player out before that, they'd got a bit fed up of him making demands. Two sides to every story, and sometimes it's maybe just the way it is.
We'll have to agree to differ on Brave, I think it's a terrific album. I'll grant you the likes of Anoraknophobia aren't great (what a letdown that I paid for that two years in advance!) but they still pull out some original quality stuff... and of course the quality of the music is almoist incidental to the technical quality of the singer, anyway. I can appreciate the argument with Marillion much as I can appreciate the argument of Ozzy over Dio but... poersonally I prefer both of the replacements as singers, but I'll accept they're maybe not as unique (although Fish's Peter Gabriel impression is pretty good, of course!). For me, it's a set period of time (Season's End and Brave) that sneaks him onto the list... along with needing a tenth at short notice
And surely they're one of the few bands who are genuinely progressive, in that their style has progressed? Doesn't mean they'll carry everyone (you!) along, but the safe option would have been to do pastiches of Genesis for the rest of their career. Doesn't stop the earlier era being terrific in its own right, either, that. But let's face it, it's only the past couple of years that your username has turned up in Mr. Dick's set again, after years of him refusing to play it.
