Season's End

Artist: Marillion
Label: Never
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Original recording remastered
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 2

UPC: 724385771323
EAN: 0724385771323
ASIN: B000005RPT

Release Date: 2000-02-22

Season's End

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Tracks:

The King Of Sunset Town
Easter
The Uninvited Guest
Seasons End
Holloway Girl
Berlin
After Me
Hooks In You
The Space

Tracks:

The Uninvited Guest (12 Inch Version)
The Bell In The Sea
The Release
The King Of Sunset Town (Mushroom Farm Demo)
Holloway Girl (Mushroom Farm Demo)
Seasons End (Mushroom Farm Demo)
The Uninvited Guest (Mushroom Farm Demo)
Berlin (Mushroom Farm Demo)
The Bell In The Sea (Mushroom Farm Demo)

Similar Items:

Holidays in Eden
Afraid of Sunlight
Brave
Anoraknophobia
Marbles

Album Details

24 Bit Remastered from the Original 1/2" Mastertapes. a Bonus Nine Track Disc is Included, featuring Previously Unreleased Versions of 'Season's End', 'The Uninvited Guest', 'Berlin' and Others.

Customer Reviews:

A new beginning.......2007-04-03

This is the first album wihtout Fish and the first with Steve Hoggart.
At this period, I remember that this album deceived me a lot, but as time goes by, I have to learn to appreciate the new Marillion. After many albums done with Hoggart, I can say that this is a very good one. This album has it all, prog as in the good old days, beautiful ballads and rock songs. "Easter", "Seasons End", "After me" and "The Space" are truly great compositions. I don't have the remastered version at this moment, but I sure will soon. I am very pleased with this album.

Incredible! Great debut featuring Hogarth!.......2004-07-11

Well, who could guess?

After Fish left the boat, more than half the soul of Marillions was gone. The band seemed doomed.

But comes Steve Hogarth and they release the stupendous SEASONS END, an album that has it all: rockers, acustic guitars, elaborated instrumental passages, good singing, good lyrics. A good album from star to finish. And, so, Marillion's existence was not in check anymore, and the band is still alive today.

The beginning and end of eras.......2003-07-11

For many longtime fans, the departure of vocalist Fish (Derek W. Dick) and the introduction of current vocalist Steve Hogarth in 1989 marked the end of Marillion as they knew it. In many ways, they were right. Unfortunately, too many of them believed that the end of Marillion as they knew it was also the end of Marillion. However, for those that have hung on for the ride to this day, we know it was not. Marillion have been able to advance and progress in such ways that we are amazed and delighted with each successive release. They have been able to combine their early Progressive Rock leanings with Rock and Roll, Hard Rock, Jazz, even Dub, while never abandoning the distinctive sound that makes them unmistakably Marillion. But, for as far as they have come, they needed to start somewhere; at the beginning.

Season's End is truly the beginning and end of eras. It marked Hogarth's first appearance with the band and yet, it still had the feeling of a Fish-era release. From the original logo appearing (for the last time), to the music (which was primarily written prior to Fish's departure), it was still concretely within the older sound. However, Hogarth (along with co-lyricist John Helmer) brought something new to the table.

Never being one that was entrenched deeply in the Fish camp, I have always considered many of Hogarth's (and often enough, Helmer's) lyrics to be sheer brilliance, and many of the band's finest appear on Season's End. "Easter" is without a doubt a classic, with it's soft acoustic base that leads into a triumphant extended solo and Hogarth's passionate, beautiful lyrics, it's enough to make a person cry.

"The Uninvited Guest" recalls some of the earlier Marillion, "Incommunicado" specifically, as its a little more upbeat, a little more goofy, but no less poingant.

The title track is still one of my all-time favorite Marillion tracks. Being an environmentally conscious person, I understand what is happening to our world, and Marillion does too. They later on went in another direction on this issue with their bitingly sarcastic "Under the Sun" from Radiation in 1998.

"The Space..." ends the album. The feeling on this one is truly as the lyrics represent it: a dark world, a car, a life spinning out of control. Here again does the band as a whole figure out how to effectively blend words and music to create such a solid and convincing image.

Season's End is still high on my list of all-time favorite Marillion releases. It has a little of the old and a little of the new that allowed for many of the fans to stay on board. Unfortunately, a lot of them left when the band went the way of something bordering commercialization (for only one album) with Holiday's In Eden in 1991. But, this should be a wake up call for those new and old to the band: they are still here and they are still amazing. If you aren't convinced, pick up at least one album, maybe Anoraknophobia in 2001, This Strange Engine in 1997, or this one, they are all fine examples as to why Marillion really is one of the greatest bands in the world.

For Jana in Berlin.......2003-05-30

A friend I knew for a short while, one of those rare women who like Marillion, once told me that she didn't think there were any good releases after Fish left. While her opinion is shared by many, and I think that there were a couple more "good" releases still to come from the band ("Holidays in Eden" and "Brave"), I agree with an earlier review that "Seasons End" was the last GREAT Marillion release. I, like most existing Marillion fans in 1989, was skeptical about the band's direction without Mr. Dick. He was so much more than a singer, he was representative of everything Marillion songs were. At that time, it was impossible to think of the band without thinking of Fish. However, for one release, there was a different Marillion that was just as good without Fish, and it was magic. I cannot say enough about this release. From the corkscrew synthesizer opening, drawing you in with classic Marillion eerie sounds in the background (which, in the Fish days, would have been representative of his personal nightmares), to the crashing drum hit at the end of the CD, every song is a winner. "The King Of Sunset Town", a song that had its musical beginnings back in the "Clutching With Straws" demos (check out that Bonus CD), is such classic Marillion sound that it was a shock to hear a voice other than Fish's. However, Steve Hogarth was so psyched about the opportunity to join this group, he (with help from John Helmer) was lyrically inspired. His varied vocal delivery matched the strength of the music in each song, (music that the band had, for the most part, written before Fish's departure), and his lyrics were as passionate as Fish's, but more topical. As such, you had the combination of the classic Marillion sound...you can imagine Fish singing with these songs...with an inspired singer looking to convey a message, and it rocked to high Heaven. "Sunset Town" alternates between its gradual (with Pete Trewavas' bass building momentum) and powerful entry (with Ian Mosley's killer drum work), bulding a story (of Tianamen Square), and a poigniant, inspiring ending. "Easter", introducing acoustic guitar and distant history (1916 Northern Ireland) into the group's songs for the first time, is the perfect pairing of Hogarth's vision and Marillion's music...Mark Kelly's synth solo, emulating a pennywhistle behind a field of flowing chords, is so perfect, and the lead in to Steve Rothery's guitar solo, while Kelly's line continues, makes me cry every time I hear it...yet Hogarth matches the music perfectly, ending the song on a inspiring note...God, what a song! "The Uninvited Guest" is a rocker in the vein of "Incommunicado", but with the guitar as the driving sound...and perfectly displays Hogarth's grasp of third person lyrics and wittiness. The title track is a moving environmental song, the music matching the seriousness of the lyrics, and ending with an introspective, long fade out. "Holloway Girl" is another inspiring song (notice a pattern?) about a woman (junkie? hooker? framed?) imprisoned, with Trewavas' bass recreating the monotony of her days, until Rothery and Mosley make us root for her in Hogarth's stuggle to find herself again and be released. "Berlin" must have been inspired by Fish when the guys wrote the music, it is so classically Marillion, and yet Hogarth takes it and adds such sad human personal poigniancy to another political song, this one about the Berlin Wall...truly, this song is one of the greatest Marillion songs ever! At the end of the song, after the blazing power of the crescendo and the amazing Rothery guitar, Kelly and Hogarth bring you back to the sad loneliness of the girl's world like a cloak being drawn over a window at sunset...brilliant! "After Me", another acoustically opened song, is another of Hogarth's third person songs, with a classic Kelly keyboard bridge that leads to another inspiring ending with Mosley and Rothery trading rolls. "Hooks In You", another rocker ala "Incommunicado" (again, though, guitar based), is playful like Fish never was. However, it all ended with the introspective "The Space", which ties all of the feelings and subjects in this release together and ties us all to each other. We end the album informed, inspired, saddened, and, untimately, wiser and more human.There would never be another Marillion release that would remotely approach this. The power of the music was relative to the Fish years (and pushed by longtime engineer Nick Davis' production assisance and incisive engineering), and Hogarth's lyrics had his talent for observation (which he retained) made so much more powerful by his almost naive innocense at the time of his joining the band. I remember seeing them in concert in June 1990 in San Diego...one of the greatest concerts I have ever seen. It was Hogarth's environmental speech after playing "Season's End" that caused me to join Greenpeace. Yet, for all the strength of the new songs and relief that Marillion would not fall apart without Fish, you could tell that Hogarth (and, in some ways, the band) were parting company with songs off previous releases, almost as if they belonged too much to Fish (which, in many ways, they did). This desire to find a new identity would diminish the instrumental power of their music, as EMI pushed them for more mainstream material and Hogarth took the reins as leader, and Marillion would never find its way back to the special place it occupied when it made this release."Season's End" is my favorite Marillion album, taking the power of the music from the Fish era and infusing it with lyrics that, while not as personal and poetic as Fish's, were in some ways stronger specifically because they WERE universal. Fish's Marillion may have been more immediate because of the despain in Fish's delivery, but "Season's End" used the Marillion musical power to bring you the world in a different light. It is truly a milestone in progressive rock.Jana, I sincerely hope that you will read this someday, and hear the power of this music, and be moved by it like I have been for almost fourteen years. I miss you, and I will never hear "Berlin" again without thinking of you, milady.

A great introduction to Hogarth's Marillion.......2003-05-20

This was Steve Hogarth's (h) first album as Marillion's frontman, and all the fears that us fans had quickly disappeared upon hearing this CD.

It is, without a doubt, quite different from where Marillion was with Fish as lead singer and lyric writer, but it is nonetheless a fantastic collection of music. Including acoustic touches to their songs (Easter, After me), which was something rare for them at that time, and straight rockers (Hooks in you), the lads proved their musicianship and their willingness to explore. h's lyrics, while not as poetic as Fish's best, are by all means very intelligent and musical in themselves. His collaborations with John Helmer are also great. This is definetely one of Marillion's best!

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