Somebody please wake me up and tell me this isn't true. With This Strange Engine, Marillion attempted to send its grand mammoths of adventure right into the treacherous fields of commerciality, and fell flat on its face while doing so. A victim of the times? Luckily not, as the band's next album, Radiation, set it on the right path again, although this was most certainly a near-death experience. And one that still sends shivers down the spine of yours truly, as Marillion sounds like a bunch of old geezers trying their tired genius on for size…and failing. And these aren't exactly old geezers we're talking about either.

It all starts awfully wrong with the jaded pseudo-hippy retro of "Man Of a Thousand Faces," which sounds like…ah, the hell with it, you figure out what it sounds like. And "One Fine Day" and "80 Days" don't do much good either, both recalling the adventurous glories of supermarket music and featuring a band that comes across as dead tired. But before one finds oneself edged to rip the album to shreds, "Estonia" comes floating along gently through gorgeous harmonies that glide in softly peaceful patterns before splashing into a magnificent chorus. In fact, the beautiful structuring of the song actually manages to erase much of its predecessors' follies from the listener's mind, which would be a saving grace if it hadn't been for singer Steve Hogarth's annoying introduction to "Memory of Water."

The war is not yet over by then, however, and the lush Gin Blossoms-like drive of "An Accidental Man" kicks in with its compelling guitar lines and a wonderful synth solo from Mark Kelly that heightens the song's elemental appeal. But that's only two against four, mind you, and the worst is yet to come with "Message of Hope," which, Lord knows why, manages to sound like a rejected track of underwater festivities from The Little Mermaid. By then all is lost, and not even the album's only hint at progressive, "This Strange Engine," manages to rescue Marillion from the edge of aural self-destruction, an unfortunate situation that is not helped by the fact that the aforementioned track lacks the necessary focus to remain constantly interesting during its entire duration. A lapse that was fortunately not to last too long.

-by Marcelo Silveyra

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