Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Marillion - Sounds That Can't Be Made (2012)

9/12/12 5:15AM

Well, the FINAL track list is actually different than the posted below (and what was sent in Promotional form, I'm pretty certain).


1. Gaza
2. Sounds That Can't Be Made
3. Pour My Love
4. Power
5. Montreal
6. Invisible Ink
7. Lucky Man
8. The Sky Above The Rain

I'm not sure if it will ultimately mean much, but playing the album with the original track order, I think I may initially prefer, but whatevah.

These are my initial thoughts.

Montreal - is terrific. It's a great multi-part epic in the Marillion tradition. Lyrically, I think it may be one to enjoy more and more at 1st, as it has a lot of pop culture references and the description of an experience at the Fan Weekend there.

Gaza - I am enjoying, although not as much as I thought I might. Another multi-part epic, that I suppose can be said dives into for the most part, new sounds texturally for the band. I'm sort of getting a "Cathedral Wall" (from Radiation) or even "House" (from marillion.com) sort of vibe in different ways. It's closer to that epic, than say "Invisible Man" (or even "Ocean Cloud"). I think this may benefit with time and end up being a Marillion classic if it grows enough. But no guarantees.

Sounds That Can't Be Made - the outro is my favorite part. The "Aurora Boreallis" and what not is pure goosebump-worthy Marillion that I love. Like "Gaza" this may grow a bit with time, but for now, I'm enjoying this enough.

Power - Another tune that I'd say already has grown on me, and like the title track, the *powerful* outro to it is the best part.

The Sky Above the Rain - nice, but nothing stands out specifically yet, unless I'm mixing it up with another piece, there's a brief (inspirational) section that sounds a bit like The Dear Hunter's "Home."

Invisible Ink - liking, but nothing stands out really just yet. Although this, like many tunes on the album, starts a bit slow.

Pour My Love - more lyrical, and another slower piece. Nothing greatly stands out yet, although I hardly hated this one.

Lucky Man - effort points, especially to H, but I'm wondering if this may fall into the "Most Toys" "See It Like a Baby" category. It may grow like a tune such as "Built In Bastard Radar" as it does have a classic bluesy melody line, but I'm struggling here. Much like the Bend Sinister tune "We Know Better" or The Dear Hunter song "Go Get Your Gun" this tune I'm wondering if I'll ever understand it's value (or it's place on this record even). Like I said, the band sound like they put a lot into this tune, I just don't know how much this song has to it, to demand that level of effort anyway.

I dunno, I'd love to eat my words in the future about it, but it may be one to skip every time.

That all being said, this record is definitely good, and perhaps even already better than Happiness is the Road. The Marbles comparisons might be a bit premature, as I'm suspicious I'll find the addiction I had to that album (or find any of their albums again to be honest, as sad as it sounds to myself about my favorite band).

But overall, there's a lot to like, and it should still place pretty high on my 2012 Index. But is it an album of the year challenger? Unlikely, now having heard it a couple of times. But within their catalog, it still compares pretty well. I think "Montreal" alone may make this memorable enough.

I am anxious to check out the DVD that comes with the deluxe edition, and of course some of these tunes live.


8/10/12 6:10AM

new trailer, 13 minutes so I haven't watched the whole thing yet. But I'm getting a bit more optimistic about it now.




7/17/12-7/18/12 10:27AM - 12:08AM

Even though this track list hasn't been officially announced in this order, I'm going with this, as there are many who've heard it, the below video shows the songs in this order, plus the story below it shows it as well.

Also in this post below, it includes some good info about the track list. "Gaza" being a 17 minute epic. John Helmer wrote lyrics to one track.

1. The Sky Above the Rain
2. Pour My Love
3. Montreal
4. Invisible Ink
5. Lucky Man
6. Gaza
7. Power
8. Sounds That Can't Be Made

http://www.rocksquare.com/Community/MusicNews/808 (thanks to Stephen Humphries)

The British band Marillion has released the first song from its September album, Sounds that Can't Be Made. The new song, "Power," is a mid-paced rocker with a prominent burbling bass line, lock-step drums and an intricate lace of chiming guitars and keyboards. Singer Steve Hogarth delivers an anguished vocal about the perplexing ways a lover casually wields power over him. The song's quiet, rain-sodden middle-eight suddenly shifts into a surging tsunami of an outro, which features torrid soloing by guitarist Steve Rothery. (Hear it, below.)

The five-piece band also announced the track listing of Sounds that Can't Be Made, the band's 17th album in a 25 year career.

The Sky Above the Rain
Pour my Love
Montreal
Invisible Ink
Lucky Man
Gaza
Power
Sounds that Can't be Made

Rock Square can exclusively reveal that poet and author John Helmer contributed a song lyric to the album. Helmer regularly contributed lyrics to each of Marillion's albums from Season's End (1990) through Marillion.com (1999), but hadn't had any lyrical input into the band's four most recent albums.

Though "Power" is the first release from Sounds that Can't Be Made, guitarist Steve Rothery conjectures that the lead single may be "Pour My Love," which, he says, sounds like Marillion meets Prince. Sounds that Can't Be Made includes several epic tracks, including "Montreal" and "Gaza." In a recent interview with Rock Square, keyboardist Mark Kelly said that the album's 16-minute centerpiece, "Gaza," is "very heavy subject matter" and that "Steve Hogarth was concerned about getting it right lyrically because it’s such a sensitive subject."

Sounds that Can't Be Made will be released through the earMusic label on September 14. A deluxe edition, featuring 128 pages of artwork in a hard-back book, an extra DVD disc featuring interviews with the band and a selection of tracks performed live in the studio, is now available for pre-order at here.



New song "Power"



They played it live, and I actually had Steve Hogarth after the show, tell me he felt it was the worst song on this album, lol.

I've already read some glaring reviews of STCBM via facebook, from admitted fanboys/fangirls. But some comparisons to Marbles.

I dig this tune, more than the other new track they played live "Lucky Man," in Chicago. But as far as this record, I'm still at status quo. I want to love it, and I'm sure I will for some of it. But I'm not expecting to as much as Marbles.

5/31/12 9:09AM

nice cover for what it's worth. As far as the Jimmy Kimmel thing, I'd be surprised if it happened, but if it did, it would be nice.

Facebook Post from Lucy/The Band

So it's May 31st and we're on our last day of rehearsing before our equipment gets shipped off to the USA for our North American Tour which starts next week. We've heard today that we've sold 10,000 tickets so far - thank you all so much for your support! There are tickets left for most gigs if you haven't got them already - see www.marillion.com/tour - we won't let you down and we even promise to... play a couple of the new songs from Sounds That Can't Be Made!

'Sounds That Can't Be Made' can be pre-ordered right up to the day it's released later this year and we thank all of you who have given us your hard earned money so far - it really has allowed us to put time and love into this album and we hope that you will enjoy the results. As an added bonus, for those of you who pre-order before June 1st, you will be entered into a draw to win some fabulous prizes www.marillion.com/preorder/index.htm.

We thought we'd use this Eweb to share the album cover with you - we love it and hope you do too. We'll try to give you more news about the album over the next few weeks - the closer we get to finishing it, the more we can tell you.

One last thing - as many of you know, mainstream media don't tend to be in love with Marillion! There is a great chat show in the USA called Jimmy Kimmel Live and they have shown some interest in having us play. A Marillion fan has started a Facebook campaign https://www.facebook.com/GetMarillionOnJimmyKimmelLive to try and get us on the show - we are very flattered by this and appearing on this show would be amazing for us! Even if you don't live in the US, can we ask you a huge favour again and ask you to go and 'like' that Facebook page?
Fan power has worked well for us in the past and perhaps it's something that can work for us again - you never know until you try!
That's all for now and we look forward to seeing at least 10,000 of you out on the road!
Mark, Steve, Ian, Pete and HSee More





4/2/12 11:57AM


facebook
also see links to their now CRASHED website about pre-orders. I'll try and edit some of this later.

2 April 2012 - New Album Pre-Order Campaign

After what seems like an AGE to us (and you too, no doubt!) we have decided on the songs which will comprise our next album and we can tell you that the next Marillion album will be titled...

SO...UNDS THAT CAN'T BE MADE

Backing tracks are already finished and we're now at the overdub stage (or "the colouring-in"). We have song titles too, but we'll wait just a little longer before announcing those.

We are planning to create exclusive Special Editions of ’Sounds That Can’t Be Made’ which we'll be making available as a PRE-ORDER directly from us through marillion.com

Following the success of previous pre-orders, we plan to make 2 different versions available:

Option 1: Deluxe Campaign Collectors CD Edition
This version will include 128 pages of artwork & lyrics presented in a deluxe hard back book. This collectors edition will also contain an extra DVD disc featuring interviews with the band and a selection of tracks performed live at the Racket Club; all filmed during various stages of the making of the album.

You can Pre-Order the Deluxe Camapign Edition from:
http://www.marillion.com/shop/albums/sounds-deluxe.htm

Option 2: The Standard 1CD Release
This version will be a 1CD Jewel case version of the album containing song lyrics & condensed album artwork.

You can Pre-Order the Standard 1CD Edition from:
http://www.marillion.com/shop/albums/sounds.htm

When will it be released? What will be on it? When can I order? What about a tour?

Just like previous pre-orders, we have set up a page on our website to answer all of these questions, and will continue to add to the list as we receive feedback from you by email and on our Forum/Facebook pages.

What we CAN tell you though, is that we expect the album to be ready sometime before September 2012 (we can't set a firm release date as our creative process doesn't always run to a timetable..) with an extensive tour planned throughout 2012 and into 2013.

All the tour dates have now been announced and are up on the marillion.com TOUR section. http://www.marillion.com/tour/index.htm

From the US onwards we will perform occasional "2 nighters". These shows will have a completely different set-list across each of the 2 nights. This will happen in the following towns:
New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Amsterdam, Paris, Milan and Barcelona

We have also announced the 2013 dates for our bi-annual Marillion Weekends in Holland, Montreal and the UK! See www.marillionweekend.com for more details.

Phew! We hope we'll see a lot of each other over the coming months.

Okay, back to Sounds That Can't Be Made......

You are able to pre-order the album NOW, and each pre-order for the Deluxe Campaign CD Edition will automatically enter you into a variety of prize draws including:

Sound-check/ front row passes to the 'Sounds That Can’t Be Made' tour, Meet-and-greets, Signed artwork, Your own private Marillion gig PLUS more as we think of them!
Only the first 5000 people to pre-order will appear in the thanks list. (We would thank you all, but we'd need a bigger booklet!)

By being part of the ’Sounds That Can’t be Made’ Pre-Order Campaign you will once again be acting as our "Record Company" by contributing to the recording, manufacture and marketing of the album.
We'd rather make this album with you. We did it before and it was great. When we skipped the pre-order for Somewhere Else we know that many of you felt disappointed that you weren’t part of the ‘whole process’. So it's no longer about the money, it's about the taking-part and a show of faith. This, frankly, blows our minds, and your support means more to us now than ever.

We meet so many bands who are envious of our amazing family around the world and we certainly don't take this for granted. We now find ourselves famous for the "Marillion business model" which is a scream, really, because the term debases what's really going on. We thank you all for being a part of this thing in the past; just as we gratefully acknowledge everyone who will preorder this forthcoming album.

So there you go - the new pre-order!

If you have any QUESTIONS, please, PLEASE go to http://www.marillion.com/preorder/index.htm (where most issues will already be
addressed) before writing to us - it'll be quicker. You can also join the discussions on the Marillion Online Forums (which we constantly monitor) if you have any outstanding queries.

We're very excited about this album - it's taken us some years to ensure it's something special. We hope over the next few weeks and months to thank you for your loyalty - we will try and keep updating you regularly with updates from the studio; both by email and in our new Racket TV Lounge (http://www.marillion.com/tvlounge.htm) on the new and fabulous marillion.com website!

It won't be long, yeah..
h, Ian, Mark, Pete, Steve

You can Pre-Order the Deluxe Camapign Edition from:
http://www.marillion.com/shop/albums/sounds-deluxe.htm

You can Pre-Order the Standard 1CD Edition from:
http://www.marillion.com/shop/albums/sounds.htmSee More


yeah, so that's the deal. My favorite band, 1st record since 2008's Happiness is the Road. Big deal? sorta, kinda, maybe, yes in some ways.

Pre-Order, I suppose I shall take the plunge, depending on budget, with the 2-disc hardbound book and dvd, etc.