Script For A Jester's Tear [Remaster]

Performer: Marillion
Engineer: Simon Hanhart; Danny Dawson
Producer: Nick Tauber; Dave Hitchcock
Distributor: Caroline Distribution

Notes: Re-issue contains a bonus disc featuring album tracks, B sides, studio takes & demos. Marillion: Fish (vocals); Steve Rothery (guitar); Mark Kelly (keyboards); Pete Trewavas (bass); Mick Pointer (drums). Recorded at The Marquee Studios & EMI House, London, England between December 1982 & February 1983. Includes liner notes by Mark Wilkinson. Digitally remastered by Peter Mew & Mark Kelly (1997, Abbey Road Studios, London, England). Special Edition. The early 1980s was perhaps the worst time in musical history to be a prog-rock band, much less to start a new one, but that's just what the hardy souls in Marillion did. Little could anyone have imagined that they'd set off a whole wave of "neo-prog" in the UK. At a time when synth-pop was all the rage, and unassuming ditties ruled the charts, Marillion's debut album, SCRIPT FOR A JESTER'S TEAR nodded proudly to such ambitious forebears as Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel-era Genesis. Lead vocalist Fish, in fact, bore an uncanny sonic similarity to Gabriel, a fact that his penchant for onstage theatrics did little to discourage. In turn, the rest of the band offered a '70s-flavored blend of Floyd/Camel-like melodic guitar lines, Rick Wakeman-with-an-attitude multi-keyboard cascades, and odd-metered rhythms. If that was the whole story, Marillion would have been written off as mere revivalists. The real spark of SCRIPT lies in the fact that it filtered these influenced through a sense of urgency and concision that could only have come from living through the post-punk era. In fact, many of Fish's lyrical themes were concerned with skewering the upper classes in a manner not dissimilar to the likes of Ian Dury or any Thatcher-hating New Waver of the era. Prog was born anew with SCRIPT, and it had a chip on its shoulder.

In the early 1980s, an era dominated by fluffy synth-pop, Marillion stood apart from the pack, with a sound heavily influenced by '70s prog rock. In particular, the band's singer, Fish, had a vocal and visual style strikingly similar to that of Peter Gabriel. Leading the charge of neo-prog into the '80s (alongside Pallas, Pendragon, IQ, et al.), Marillion struck a blow for old-school rock values. After Fish departed, Steve Hogarth came aboard, and instead of falling apart without the former's dynamic presence, the band continued to flourish both musically and commercially.

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