Recorded live at the Marillion Weekend Port Zelande Sun March 19th 2023.

This album is a compilation of all Marillion's past Christmas songs originally included on various fan club releases over the years. The album has now been updated to include The Carol Of The Bells, All I Want for Christmas Is You, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and a Child's Christmas In Wales.

On the weekend of 17th March 2023, thousands of Marillion fans travelled from over 45 different countries around the world for the 21st Anniversary of the Marillion Weekends and the first Port Zelande Weekend for four years. The centrepiece of the Weekend was the definitive live performance of the critically acclaimed album “An Hour Before It’s Dark”. Featuring special guests, incredible visuals and a captivating light show, this unique event was filmed in a newly reconfigured, custom built venue.

Founded in 1979, MARILLION from England are among the most well-known artists in the world. With frontman Fish, the band was able to establish itself as one of the most influential bands of neo-prog, a form of progressive that flourished in the 1980s. This 2 disc set in a beautiful digisleeve contains concert recordings from 1994 (Mexico City) and 1997 (Pittsburgh, USA), broadcast by radio stations.

1988's The Thieving Magpie is a sprawling double-disc live set which manages to tie up virtually all the loose ends from Marillion's years with charismatic frontman Fish. Like 1984's Real to Reel mini live album, Magpie offers mostly sterling performances packed with both feeling and technical precision, which often times manage to better their studio counterparts thanks to their road-worthy fluidity. But unlike that seamlessly assembled mini live album, it does suffer from the occasional silence between tracks, or even noticeable variations in sound quality, crowd noise, and general ambiance. Sure, most listeners won't give a hoot about such details when faced with the sheer creative breadth (some would say absurdity) of such Marillion magnum opuses as "Fugazi," "Script for a Jester's Tear," and "Chelsea Monday" to name but a few…

This is a live 2CD recording of the concert at St David's Hall, Cardiff, Wales on the 16th November 2019 during the Friends From The Orchestra Tour.

Before the arrival of the deluxe, double-CD reissues that restored Marillion's entire discography to glory in the late '90s, 1988's B-Sides Themselves was the only source for Fish-era fanatics to experience the many rarities of the colorful progressive rockers' career. Sure enough, no time is wasted with subtlety here, as the monumental "Grendel" opens this collection with 18 minutes of over the top pomp and grandeur. Less challenging, but equally entertaining nuggets like "Charting the Single" and "Three Boats Down From the Candy" follow, but the clear highlights are contained in the songs previously heard on the band's live albums; first single "Market Square Heroes" and the exquisite "Cinderella Search" were featured on 1984's Real to Reel, while the punchy "Freaks" was first heard on 1988's The Thieving Magpie…

Delivering a political album is always risky, with the possibility that it will get locked in its historical era usually a direct consequence. On their 18th album, prog rockers Marillion don't seem to care, and they have nothing to lose and no one to account to but themselves. FEAR is an acronym for "Fuck Everybody and Run." Two of its three lengthy, multi-part suites ("El Dorado" and "The New Kings") are overtly political statements that look at England and the calamitous state of the world not only observationally but experientially. Topical songs have been part of the band's catalog as far back as 1984's "Fugazi," and have shown up as recently as the multi-part "Gaza," from 2012's Sounds That Can't Be Made (the latter was perhaps an impetus for this record)…

Songs from the Mirror was the third studio album that Fish released and it was the second of his two albums to fulfill his contract for Polydor. Fish needed more time to write a new album and he decided that to complete his current contract he would release an album of cover versions, an idea first conceived when he was with Marillion. The band was the same as the previous album except that Foster "Foss" Paterson replaced Mickey Simmonds as he had done on the tour. The songs chosen were personal favorites of Fish and are not all prog rock tracks as may have been thought from listening to his music. Of the tracks on the album, a number are fairly faithful to the originals; "Question" (Moody Blues), "Boston Tea Party" (Sensational Alex Harvey Band), and "Jeepster" (T. Rex). Fish did tend to adapt the slower songs on the album (e.g. Pink Floyd's "Fearless" and Sandy Denny's "Solo") to his own vocal style and his added depth to the music…

This Scottish rock vocalist enjoyed success both as a solo artist and with progressive rockers Marillion.
13th Star was written as a concept album, although this applies mainly to the lyrics presenting a narrative throughout - the concept was of someone on a journey of self- discovery, with the 13th Star serving as the guiding light or the destination. From the first chords of the opening track, "Circle Line," the influence of Vantsis can be heard as the album has a more rocky feel, more akin to Sunsets on Empire than more recent albums. After this fast start, the album slows down on the third track, "Miles de Besos," which is Spanish for "Thousands of Kisses." The fifth track, "Arc of the Curve," was the first single released from the album, but as expected, it did nothing in the charts. After this track, the album picks up the pace again with one of the disc's highlights, "Manchmal"…

After six years of absence from the studio, Scottish progressive rock singer Fish has returned with a startling level of inspiration in the form of 2013's A Feast of Consequences. Fish's first album since 2007's Thirteenth Star was released after experiencing events that would be nothing less than traumatic for most people - going through both the end of a marriage and a throat cancer scare in a narrow window of time can't be easy, but as we saw on Marillion's Clutching at Straws, Fish's personal struggles often inspire some of his strongest work. A Feast of Consequences once again demonstrates this to be true. The album shows Fish continuing to mature the sound that he has been toying with for most of his solo career. Sophisticated art rock characterized by melodic songwriting, witty lyricism, and influences from folk music is the name of the game on A Feast of Consequences…

16 Soft Rock Classics from The Stranglers, Gerry Rafferty, The Waterboys, Huey & The News Lewis & Others

EMI-Capitol Special Markets' Lost Hits series is unusual, as far as budget-line series go. Usually, budget-line collections have a few hits and a lot of filler, topping out at ten or 12 tracks. Lost Hits contains no less than 20 tracks, and instead of relying on predictable material, the compilers have balanced underappreciated hits, cult favorites and forgotten singles from the EMI vaults, resulting in a thoroughly entertaining disc. Lost Hits of the '80s sticks to mainstream pop for most of its 20 tracks, but there are jangle-pop singles (the Grapes of Wrath's "Oh Lucky Man"), new wave (Total Coelo's "I Eat Cannibals"), prog- rock (Marillion's "Kayleigh"), rockabilly revival (Phantom, Rocker & Slick's "Men Without Shame") and lots of pop-rock, hard rock and arena rock from the likes of John Taylor, the Pursuit of Happiness, Martha Davis, the Jon Butcher Axis, the Tubes, Rob Jungklas, Vixen, Red Rider, Industry, Amy Holland and Glass Tiger. There might not be many songs that are instantly recognizable, but that's the very reason why it's worth a gamble at this bargain price.