Marillion’s new single, “You’re Gone,” just hit number seven in the UK charts. It’s their first top 10 single since 1987.

And I just can’t stop grinning whenever I think about it.

The single’s extraordinary success is the big payoff of a concentrated long-term campaign designed to show the music business a thing or two about independent creativity. The band stated at the start of this journey that they wanted to take the established idea of fan power and “blow it through the sky.” And that’s just what they’ve done.

There are hundreds of little tricks record companies use to get their singles in the top 10, including arranging playlistings at radio stations, bargaining for prime shelf space at record stores and expending huge marketing budgets. Marillion did none of that. They got their single to number seven by doing two very simple, yet deceptively difficult things.

They told their fans when it was coming out, and they asked them to buy it.

The fans listened and bought because this is a band that means something to them. Marillion has cultivated this relationship for years through their website, which should become the model on which band sites are patterned before long. The band is able to call on its fanbase for support because for many, many years, the Marillion camp has prided itself on keeping every promise to come from its ranks. If you get the small things right, like great customer service (through their own label, Racket Records, and online store), they lead to bonds of trust and great leaps of faith.

The current campaign has centered around an album called Marbles. Eight months ago, Marillion tapped their sizeable fanbase with an idea: complete and total independence. They asked the fans to pre-order Marbles, just as they had done with Anoraknophobia in 2001, only this time, they weren’t looking for a record deal. They were looking for the funds to record, mix, master, manufacture, release and promote Marbles all on their own.

They got 13,500 leaps of faith this time, at roughly $55 each (depending on exchange rates). And they followed through. Marbles is out May 3, on the band’s own label, and thanks to a dedicated group of promoters and pluggers, Marillion’s music is receiving more press and attention now than it has since leaving EMI in 1995. New interviews appear every day, the band has done numerous radio appearances, and will be on the Dutch version of Top of the Pops this week.

Most impressively (and importantly), though, everyone who tuned in to the chart show on BBC Radio 1 this past weekend heard “You’re Gone.” If you have any doubts that charting a single this way is a revolutionary act, check this: as a direct result of “You’re Gone” appearing in the Dutch Top 10 (at number eight), the overlords have decided to change the way the chart is compiled. Now it will be based on sales and airplay, instead of just sales, so the big record companies can retain control.

They wouldn’t pull things like this if they weren’t scared. For the first time in recent memory, good music has pulled off a significant coup against bad music. Hell, “You’re Gone” even out-charted the new Franz Ferdinand single, “Matinee,” and that one had a major record label, several important music magazines and every radio and video station on its side. This is huge.

It gets better, though. In addition to financial independence, the Marbles pre-order also bought Marillion something more precious to a musician: complete creative control. And they used it to make the album of their lives. Marbles is a massive work – 100 minutes long, wildly diverse and challenging. It comes packaged in a gorgeous slipcased hardcover book, which includes the names of all 13,500 fans who pre-ordered it. The album contains three songs that zoom past the 10-minute mark, and it follows no trends and caters to no radio markets whatsoever. No record label on Earth would have paid for this album, especially considering that it took two full years to make.

You can hear, in virtually every minute of this record, why the fanbase is so emphatic in its support of this band. This is a labor of love, a deeply emotional piece of music that involves, astounds, inspires and amazes. The band again worked with producer Dave Meegan, who brought a clarity and depth to this recording that you just don’t hear very often. After two years of intensive work, the sound of Marbles is naturally dense and meticulously constructed, and yet there isn’t a moment of this album that sounds labored or fussed over. It is direct, it has heart, and listening to all 100 minutes end to end is a remarkably moving experience.

Marbles may be separated into two discs, but it is absolutely one complete journey, broken up into five distinct trips, if you will. Most of Marbles bears out the idea that the band has been heading toward this record since leaving EMI. All of the tricks they’ve picked up through their relentless experimentation have been incorporated here, and grafted onto the classic Marillion sound. It’s the first time since Afraid of Sunlight that all of the experiments work. The album contains not one bad track, and I cannot imagine the album working as well without any of them. (This despite the existence of a one-CD retail version that omits four songs…)

Marbles opens with its darkest and trickiest track, the 13-minute “The Invisible Man.” It’s a bold choice for an opener – pop radio fans who pick up the album on the strength of “You’re Gone” will be greeted by this monstrosity right up front, and they may not know what to do with it. Here Marillion picks up the ball dropped by Radiohead during their electronic ambient phase and scores a touchdown. Multiple sections, multiple time shifts, an amazing bass performance by Pete Trewavas, creepy synth beats and textures, and one of the best vocal performances Steve Hogarth has ever given. When he pushes the final shoutings of the title phrase right up and out of his range, it’s one of the bravest things I’ve heard in a long time.

The song is about disappearing, about becoming immaterial, and it sets the theme. Marbles is about losing it, in a nutshell – losing one’s youth, one’s sanity, one’s love. And it’s also about the difficult yet rewarding struggle to get all of that back. The main metaphor of a child literally losing his marbles is stated in the four linking sections, each about two minutes, that divide and yet connect the record. These bits are sad and sweet, with hints of Paul McCartney’s solo work.

The second section is made up of a trio of atmospheric ballads, which almost blend together into one terrific 18-minute piece. “Genie” is the closest this album comes to a weak track, with its simple chorus, but it takes flight halfway through with a decidedly Neil Finn-style bridge. “Fantastic Place” may be the album’s emotional high point – a deeply felt ballad with a great vocal and a full “Bridge Over Troubled Water” string arrangement from Mark Kelly. And “The Only Unforgivable Thing” unfolds slowly over its seven minutes, gloriously ending where it began. The song, and in fact the entire trilogy, is about guilt and regret, and you feel every second.

“Ocean Cloud” is the album’s centerpiece and masterpiece. It’s an 18-minute progressive epic, full of atmosphere, but it has a chorus, and its phenomenal arrangement carries you along. I can’t even put into words how stunning this track is. Hogarth sings with desperate sadness, Rothery turns in a pair of heartfelt solos, and Kelly is note-perfect throughout, especially in sections designed to sound like storms and choppy waters. This is not, however, some technical exercise, as if Marillion has ever made one of those. “Ocean Cloud” is as personal and deeply moving as anything they’ve done – more so, in fact. It’s a draining, powerful song, and when it’s over, you feel as if you’ve really been somewhere. And you really want to go back, and soon.

After the hugeness of “Ocean Cloud,” you need the relative catchiness of the five pop songs that make up the fourth section. Marillion is one of the few bands on Earth that is equally superb at the 20-minute epic and the five-minute radio single. And this time out, they’re as good as they’ve ever been at both. “The Damage” is the album’s one electrified rocker, with a pounding Beatlesque piano part and a swooping, cracking vocal that’s just outstanding. (This song connects lyrically with “Genie,” further solidifying the album’s themes.) “Don’t Hurt Yourself” is the album’s most infectious tune, with some wonderful slide guitar from Rothery and a soaring falsetto chorus from Hogarth.

And then there’s “You’re Gone,” here in its full six-minute glory. Putting this into the top 10 so that everyone could hear it would mean nothing if it weren’t a good song. “You’re Gone” is fantastic, a perfect single – it catches hold immediately and grows deeper from there. It is very much like the pop song version of Anorak’s “This Is the 21st Century.” It pulses forward on a trippy breakbeat, and features some marvelous processed guitar work and another (yes, another) great vocal from Hogarth. I said it before, but this song is what Pop-era U2 should have sounded like.

“Angelina” brings the blues back in for the smoothest seven minutes this band has ever delivered. It’s a new entry in an old genre – the ode to late-night DJs. But man, listen to Rothery on this song. He just glides, playing perfect subdued lines that no other guitarist, no matter how revered, could improve. The section wraps up with “Drilling Holes,” a crazy slab of psychedelia with a Beatles vibe, complete with a harpsichord breakdown. It’s a great conclusion to the lighter part of the record, and it leads in (after the fourth “Marbles” bit) to the grand conclusion.

Marbles concludes with “Neverland,” a return to the intensity of the first disc. It sounds to these ears like Pink Floyd’s take on “Hey Jude” – a nearly gospel-inspired four minute powerhouse with a joyous, ecstatic eight-minute playout, Hogarth’s voice echoing over and under Kelly’s analog synth lines and Rothery’s melodic guitar. It’s an enormous explosion of a finish, but it’s never bombastic, and where you’d expect a huge finale, you get a mesmerizing bed of windchimes. “Neverland” is about letting go of childhood dreams, and it gently deposits you back into the real world after 100 minutes of wonder. It also contains Hogarth’s best line this time out: “I want to be someone someone would want to be.”

It is too early to call Marbles the best Marillion album, since there are so many over so many years with which it must be compared. It’s fighting an uphill battle against emotional connections forged with earlier records, but it’s largely winning – only Brave and Clutching at Straws stand in its way, and that is a high watermark indeed. It is perhaps the finest proof to date of my theory – this is an album full of intense, complex music, played with extraordinary skill, and yet it has an emotional core that runs deep and true. It’s head music that you feel.

It’s also a testament to creativity unfettered by the suffocating music business. Marbles is the sound of a band in love with music, in love with the transformative power and beauty of what can be created when the heart is there. It’s not about success – this album was a success, financially speaking, before the band ever hit the record button. It’s about a band making the best music it can, and then getting that music directly to those who will love it as much as the band does.

It may be optimistic to think that Marbles sounds like the future. But if I ever need a reminder of what faith in and working for a better way can produce, I can always pop on this album and reflect on the fact that by every music business rule, Marbles should not exist, and Marillion should never have had a top 10 hit 25 years into their career. Marbles exists. “You’re Gone” is in the charts. These things are true because we made them so. In a way, despite all the lyrical darkness, this is Marillion’s most optimistic album, because it’s predicated on the belief that things can change, if we only work to change them.

So, to sum up. The album is a work of genius. The band is in the best position, creatively and financially, that it has ever been in. And the future looks bright. It’s a great time to be a Marillion fan, and an even better time to become one. The one-CD version of Marbles comes out in the UK on May 3, but the two-CD version is available now at www.marillion.com, as is all of their back catalog, including some inexpensive sampler discs. There aren’t a lot of bands I would pimp this heavily for, but then, there aren’t a lot of bands like Marillion. For even attempting what they do, they deserve respect, but for pulling it off time after time, they deserve to be treasured.

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Next week, some CDs that weren’t made by Marillion…

See you in line Tuesday morning.

It’s constantly amazing and amusing to me that even after 17 years and 13 albums with Marillion, Steve Hogarth is still considered by many to be “the new guy.”

Hogarth had the unenviable task of replacing Fish, the man who for seven years defined Marillion with his voice and outsize personality. And rather than enlist a Fish clone, the band ingeniously went with someone nearly Fish’s opposite in voice, temperament, and even height. Hogarth is a small, spry man with a high, airy voice of often surprising power, and a typically English sense of humor – dry and reserved.

Though it may have seemed an odd choice at the time, Hogarth has proven to be a perfect fit with the band, moreso even than his predecessor. The second phase of the band has produced nine albums ranging from very good to spectacular, and has tackled an almost mindboggling array of styles. They have, of course, remained Marillion through it all – a phenomenally talented progressive pop band – but with Hogarth, they have opened up their sound, allowing those prog tendencies to sit next to dozens of other influences. It doesn’t always cohere, but it’s always surprising, exciting and rewarding listening.

Yet still people ask when Fish is coming back. It’s incredible. One of the least charitable reviews of the new single, “You’re Gone,” began like this: “So’s Fish. Some Bono wannabe sings instead.” For many, the Hogarth era of Marillion has been one diminishing return after another, with Fish fans waiting in vain for the band to make another Misplaced Childhood. It’s never going to happen. Nor should it. The band has moved past the limited sound they exhibited on their first four releases, and as reviewer John Hotten once famously put it, “[Hogarth] may be no Fish, but then, Fish is no Steve Hogarth.”

Seasons End (1989)

Hogarth came to Marillion after stints in radio pop acts the Europeans and How We Live. He almost immediately became known simply as H, to avoid confusion with guitarist Steve Rothery. Along with his MTV-ready good looks and charm, H brought a musicianship to the table that Fish couldn’t have matched. He’s a terrific songwriter (as a perusal of his solo album, Ice Cream Genius, will reveal), and a fantastic singer. Where Fish got by on emotion and strength, H has a rich, technically proficient voice with a perfect, soaring falsetto at his command. Plus, the guy can sing pretty much anything.

The quality of H’s voice must have been the first thing fans noticed when playing Seasons End, the new model Marillion’s maiden voyage. Rather than call attention to itself as the focus, Hogarth’s voice is like another instrument, perfectly complementing the ringing guitars and keyboards on “King of Sunset Town,” the album opener. That song, with its two-minute fade-in and ambient sound, set the tone for this largely quiet and atmospheric record.

Seasons End is the very antithesis of the maxim about making a splashy first impression. It’s a grower, a thoughtful record that deepens with each play. It slowly seeps into your consciousness on waves of clean guitar and sustained synth lines. It is, above all, a powerfully emotional recording – the band hadn’t lost a note from the Clutching sessions, and H took the melodies to new heights. How anyone could listen to Hogarth’s vocals on the second half of “Berlin,” for example, or the incredible climax of “The Space,” and wish for Fish’s return is beyond me.

As the legend goes, H arrived for his first rehearsals with a red plastic bucket full of demo recordings on cassette. Much of the music for Seasons End was constructed from aborted sessions for the band’s fifth album with Fish, and whenever those bits weren’t working, someone would ask H if he had anything in the bucket worth trying. As fate would have it, one of the songs in the bucket was named “Easter,” and it became the enduring classic of this album. A gorgeous acoustic guitar and keyboard backing, a superb vocal melody, a soaring 90-second guitar solo, and a final third that shifts into the stratosphere – “Easter” is one of Marillion’s best songs, and they’ve played it at nearly every show since its release.

Unfortunately, they did make one colossal blunder on Seasons End, and it’s called “Hooks in You.” It’s a straight ‘80s rock song, one that’s almost crying out for a sleazy video. It’s full of guitar heroics and stupid lyrics, it sounds completely out of place on this contemplative record, and inexplicably, it was the first single. So the first taste many fans had of Hogarth came in the form of a glam-metal throwaway, and many just walked away, assuming Marillion had pulled a Phil Collins-years Genesis. And sadly, the band would only compound that problem next time out.

Holidays in Eden (1991)

If anyone wished to accuse Marillion of selling out, this album would be the evidence. Holidays is the most pop-based, compressed, radio-ready album the band has ever released. It has not one, but two Phil Collins-style ballads, a couple of unimaginative rockers, and an overall hit single vibe that was the last straw for fans of the old progressive style. It’s the weakest album they’ve made, by a mile.

And you know what? It’s still really good.

It’s easy to blame Hogarth for the poppy direction of Holidays. After years of being defined by their lead singer, it’s possible (and many have assumed) that the band took direction from their former pop idol frontman, especially since both “Dry Land” and “Cover My Eyes” date back to H’s days with How We Live. Even the liner notes seem to suggest this – Hogarth’s essay is the only one that feels completely positive about the album and its direction.

But it’s just not a fair assessment. First, Hogarth’s solo stuff is almost anti-pop. Second, the rest of the band is all over Holidays, in a good way. Listen to Rothery’s solo spots in the creepy opener “Splintering Heart,” or even on mid-tempo ballad “Dry Land,” and you’ll hear just as much emotion as he’s ever poured out. Listen to how the band clicks into a groove on “This Town,” or the title track. They’re having fun, and Chris Neil’s echoey production can’t mask that.

That said, though, Hogarth owns this album. Impressive as he was on Seasons End, he cuts right to the heart of it here. His powerful vocals on “The Party” will haunt you, especially in the unadorned opening and closing sections. His falsetto is flawless on “Cover My Eyes,” which was, before “You’re Gone,” Marillion’s most perfect radio single. Even “No One Can,” the album’s most top-40-sounding track, benefits greatly from H’s delivery. (Of course, it being the weakest and most typical track here, “No One Can” was the disastrous first single…)

A lot of people who bought Holidays only listened one or two times before giving up, which is a shame. This album is as much a grower as Seasons End, even if it doesn’t share that record’s meditative qualities. You need a few listens to hear past the production sheen and get to the songs, because there are some gems here. Still, if you’re only going to buy one H-era Marillion album, it shouldn’t be this one.

Brave (1994)

It should probably be this one.

You’ll find a lot of disagreement amongst Marillion fans regarding songs and albums, which is to be expected when a band jumps genres like this one does, but most will agree that Brave is a masterpiece. The band worked on this album like they’d never worked on anything before. Holidays in Eden was a disappointment on many levels, and vowing not to repeat that process, they took EMI’s money, holed up in a castle in France, and made a 70-minute concept album that plays like a single devastating song. The guys in Marillion still chafe against the prog-rock label they’re often tagged with, but how can they argue when they make albums as progressive as this one?

Brave was inspired by a news story about a girl found wandering the Severn Bridge in Bristol, an apparent suicide risk who refused to talk to police about her identity. The album tells the story of how she may have ended up there, and about what happens to her in the end. It’s a difficult, complex and brilliant album, one of the finest conceptual works I have heard. The opening draws you in, from the haunting guitar foghorn noises to the hushed piano and vocals of “Bridge,” and the grand finale – the ambient stunner of a title track, the dramatic “The Great Escape” and the delicate “Made Again” – is shattering. It breaks you apart and puts you back together again, all in 20 minutes.

Brave is also notable for its sound. This is an old-fashioned concept record, one in which every second was sculpted and labored over. The sonic quality of Brave is pretty much perfect, and credit must go to Dave Meegan, in his first production effort for the band. Meegan is now unofficially the sixth member of Marillion, and his amazing contributions to Marbles were so essential that he’s pictured with the band in their only liner note photo. Meegan painted Brave like a classical artist, bringing the best out of Marillion. The result is perhaps their finest work.

And of course, it tanked. No one makes a 70-minute concept album and expects it to sell millions, but Marillion were kind enough to EMI to provide them with a catchy hit single, “Alone Again in the Lap of Luxury.” But just as they fumbled the ball with Holidays (an album just screaming for radio play it never got), they wrote off Brave quickly. It was becoming obvious that the band was no longer welcome at their label.

Afraid of Sunlight (1995)

They decided to bang one more record out for EMI, and the label warned them against doing anything like taking two years to make an expensive concept album in France again. Afraid of Sunlight was knocked out, as the back cover says, in a few months, and it examined the pitfalls of fame, particularly the sudden kind, from many different angles. It was almost like the band’s farewell to their major label, a cautionary tale warning against what Radiohead would later term “the bends.”

Sunlight may have been made quickly and cheaply, but it certainly doesn’t sound like it. The band worked with Meegan again, and the sonic layers of Brave are in (slightly diminished) evidence. The songs on Sunlight are tighter than those on Brave, with fewer sprawling sections, but no less depth and power. It’s a very American album, with nods to the Beach Boys on the hilarious “Cannibal Surf Babe,” Phil Spector on the mono-mixed “Beyond You,” and several American figures that serve as lyrical metaphors. It’s a deep, atmospheric record, almost a sequel to Seasons End.

Smack in the middle of the album is a trilogy that stands with the best work the band has produced. It starts with the lilting “Afraid of Sunrise,” but soon moves into the stunning epic “Out of This World,” which contains more than one magical moment. And the title track, which caps it off, is goosebump-raising. Hogarth shines throughout, and Mark Kelly delivers the goods with swirling keyboards in all the right places. And Rothery soars, as usual.

The album ends abruptly, much like the band’s relationship with EMI Records did after Sunlight’s release. Marillion gave the label one last stab at a hit single with the defiantly simple “Beautiful,” and called it a day. They headed off towards the minor leagues, ready to explode into the future.

This Strange Engine (1997)

The band’s debut for Castle Records is the first installment in what some fans call the “unholy trinity,” three albums for which Marillion took the production reins themselves and began restlessly experimenting. Engine is so radically different from what came before that it left many long-time fans scratching their heads, especially in the wake of prog-heavy albums like Brave and Sunlight. That not all of these experiments worked only added to the confusion.

Marillion began their reinvention by stripping away almost everything definably Marillion in their sound. Engine is acoustic-based, for the most part, and comparatively sparse. “Memory of Water,” for example, is strictly voice and keyboard strings. Opener “Man of a Thousand Faces” is so simple and folksy it defies belief, and then it switches halfway through into a vocally layered crescendo. “One Fine Day” opens like an Aerosmith ballad, but takes it down a notch to end up with a subtle, emotional pop song.

Engine is largely hit or miss. Highlights include the gorgeous, Celtic-flavored “Estonia” and the pulsing electric tune “An Accidental Man,” the only one of its kind on the album. Lowlights, though, include “80 Days,” with its overpowering and cheesy synth trumpet lines, and “Hope for the Future,” a foray into island music that’s fun, but not worth revisiting too often.

And then, on the final track, they sucker-punch you. “This Strange Engine” is a 15-minute masterwork, one of their finest pieces. It glides from section to section with a flow so perfect that it feels like five minutes. H sings his little heart out, especially on the propulsive closing section, and Rothery takes a solo (right after “on the horizon…,” and those who have heard it are nodding their heads right now) that approaches perfection. It’s a superb song, perhaps the best example of Marillion combining their trademark emotional connection and musical skill.

Too bad the album doesn’t hold up as well. This Strange Engine catches Marillion at the cusp of an evolution, one which they’ve only just completed (or so it seems) on Marbles. It’s still an enjoyable record, but in the canon, it doesn’t rank very high.

Radiation (1998)

The second independently produced record finds the band replacing everything they stripped away last time with dirty, growling guitars. Radiation contains the band’s heaviest material to that point, especially “The Answering Machine” and “Cathedral Wall,” and yet continues their genre-hopping experimental streak.

Many fans objected to the production on this record, since most of the subtlety seems drowned in furious noise upon first listen. Radiation is a loose, fun album, a brief dive into spontaneity and loudness. Opener “Under the Sun” is a soaring rocker, with a high melody that makes room for an unconventional theremin part. “The Answering Machine” sounds like the loudest folk song ever written, with torrents of electric guitar and distorted keyboards raining down upon it.

But elsewhere, the band leapfrogs styles again with abandon. “Born to Run” is an understated blues jam with no chorus, “These Chains” is a delightful Beatlesque pop song (and the single), and “Cathedral Wall” is almost goth-metal, complete with some of Hogarth’s most unnerving screams. The band quiets down to an almost ridiculous degree for “Now She’ll Never Know,” sung so high that H’s voice always seems on the verge of breaking. And closer “A Few Words for the Dead” is a 10-minute wonder – it almost serves as its own dance mix for its first half, and then abruptly shifts into a joyous pop finale.

There’s nothing really wrong with Radiation, but like Engine, it doesn’t coalesce into more than the sum of its parts. It’s certainly fun and surprising, but it doesn’t hold up to repeat listens the way that Brave does. Still, they continued to evolve while making this record, and considering where they’ve ended up, Radiation was a necessary step.

Marillion.com (1999)

Marillion is not a band that works quickly. So when they burned off their Castle Records contract with three quick albums, one a year, one might have expected at least one of them to be lousy. Marillion.com, named after the website that has become their main connection with the world, proved that to be false. It’s just as good as, if not better than, Radiation and Engine, even if it still fails to reach the heights of Brave and Sunlight.

But that’s largely down to the experiments, which continue here apace. This album contains some of their poppiest material since Holidays in Eden, but with some of the sheen wiped off. “Rich” is an exceptionally catchy tune that was also the only single, and its vocal line is incredibly hard to sing, which H has proved with numerous gasping live versions. “Deserve” bops along uncomplicatedly, with a sax solo thrown in. And “Tumble Down the Years” steps into Neil Finn territory, which the band pulls off well.

As interesting as the first seven tracks are, though, they’re merely prelude for the last two. “Interior Lulu” is another 15-minute epic that plays like five, with its quirky bassline and sweet melody exploding into a lightning-quick keyboard solo. The extended playout, with its mesmerizing bass workouts courtesy of Pete Trewavas, is worth the whole song. The album ends with “House,” a 10-minute leap into dub-style pop with trumpet solos and a great chorus.

There are very few bands who would include “Tumble Down,” “Lulu” and “House” on the same album, let alone sequence them all in a row. For that type of musical surprise, Marillion is practically unbeatable. Marillion.com is another album that doesn’t gel completely, but when it’s on, it’s the best of the trilogy it concludes.

As a side note, this album contains the first interactive moment between the band and their online fanbase. Marillion asked their fans to send in pictures of themselves, and dozens of these photographs adorn the liner notes of the album. It was an interesting trick for a record largely about human contact through technological means, and it led to the amazing preorder stunt they pulled for the next one.

Anoraknophobia (2001)

This is the album that blew the doors off.

In 2000, Marillion found themselves without a record contract, and with a dissatisfied feeling towards labels in general. So they took it to the fanbase, asking them whether they would pre-order an album that hadn’t been finished yet, just based on the band’s word. Pre-ordering, they said, would finance the recording of the album, thus freeing them to secure a distribution deal for a finished product that sounded exactly the way the band wanted. According to the band, they expected only a few thousand responses.

They got 12. Thousand, that is. And hundreds more besides.

Anoraknophobia reunited Marillion with Dave Meegan, and it’s not exaggerating to say that together they completely reinvented the band. The experimentalism of the last three albums wove its way into the writing process, and the album incorporates drum loops, dub sounds and computer effects all over the place. But it’s not trendy-sounding in any way. Anoraknophobia takes hold of the trip-hop electronic thing and uses it to enhance a terrific set of songs, ones that are at once more pop and more prog than anything they had done since Brave.

Many bands, when they reach the 20-year mark, slow down and start making quieter records about growing old. Marillion went the opposite direction – Anoraknophobia is the loudest, most alive-sounding record they had yet made. Just listen to Ian Mosley’s thundering drums on “If My Heart Were a Ball It Would Roll Uphill,” or Rothery’s explosive guitar on “Separated Out,” or Trewavas’ stunning bassline on “Quartz.” Hogarth pulls out all the stops, too, shouting sections of “Quartz” at the top of his lungs and building “This Is the 21st Century” to an extraordinary climax.

It’s hard not to equate the band’s revitalization with their newfound financial freedom. They felt no need to deliver a single, so when they came up with two (“Between You and Me” and “Map of the World”) it was obvious that they were included because they’re both great songs. Anorak is an immediate stunner that still manages to be a grower as well. Songs like “21st Century,” a modern classic, are great on first listen and get better with repeat plays. Anorak is not easy – four of the eight songs hover around the 10-minute mark, and most have multiple sections – but it’s apparent on first go-round that this album is worth investing time in.

And what of that financial gamble? Did it work? Glad you asked. Those who pre-ordered Anorak through the band got a special hardbound book with their names in it, and a bonus disc of demos. They also helped the band set up their organization, and paved the way for Marbles. It’s become clear that Anorak was, both in its creative direction and its business plan, a dry run for Marbles, and we’ll explore next week just how fruitful that direction and that plan have been this year.

But here’s a snippet of the revolutionary way they’re doing things now, straight from their own email list: “By selling our album straight to you, we become completely free to take the decisions which affect the future of the band and we can also remove the middle-men who stand between you – our listeners – and us. For the first time we’ll OWN our own music. We’re going to kick out as many of the cynics and the businessmen as we can, and replace them with our own team of accomplished professionals who are driven as much by faith as we are.”

Viva la revolution, I say, especially when the creative rewards sound like Anoraknophobia.

* * * * *

Next week, Marbles. Is it any surprise that I love it?

Again, all Marillion albums are available at www.marillion.com.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I have a theory about why I think Marillion is one of the best bands in the world.

It goes like this:

Taking together all the disparate styles of music one can make, and not being a guy who likes genre labels very much, there are really only a couple of kinds of great music: those songs that blow your mind, and those that touch your soul. Musical impulses hail from two different regions, most commonly called head and heart, and it’s easy to tell from which one a song emerged. It’s the difference between hearing one song and saying, “Wow, that was well done, what a difficult and original thing to pull off, I think I’ll have to study that,” and hearing another and saying, “I love that, and I want to hear it all the time, because it gives me a big wide grin and brings tears to my eyes.”

The thing is, skill and emotion cannot often coexist. The more complicated and difficult a song is to play, the less likely there will be room within its passages to really connect with the listener in a straightforward manner. No one will disagree that the guys in King Crimson can play, but then I doubt many would say that “Larks Tongues in Aspic” really touched them, or made them cry.

At the far end of the skill spectrum, at least as far as this column’s purview is concerned, is progressive rock. Here are songs written for the express purpose of flaunting one’s musical skill, songs that stretch to 30 or 45 minutes, songs full of dazzling instrumental prowess and, it must be said, very little heart. And at the other end is simple folk music, a singer and his or her guitar strumming a few simple chords and bleeding all over them with emotion. And yet the songs, when broken down, are almost laughably easy to compose and play. Neither skill nor emotion can withstand the other’s scrutiny.

This is not an argument for one over the other. To the contrary, I would say that the best artists are the ones who can combine the two impulses, creating music that challenges the brain and moves the heart. Examples of this are few and far between, of course, and like everything else, entirely subjective. Most of my favorite bands choose emotion over everything, and my heart sways my head. I have found a few that can deliver for me on both levels without having to switch back and forth, but even they can only do it sporadically.

Marillion has been doing it consistently for more than 20 years. If one were to use crap industry terms to describe their sound, it would probably come out as progressive-ambient-pop-rock, but they’ve also done blues, acoustic folk, techno, island music, dub, you name it. Basically, if there’s a style of music that can be played by five English guys, Marillion have ingested it and spit it back out with their own distinctive stamp. They gleefully jump from genre to genre. Their songs can last the better part of 20 minutes, or less than three. Their catalog contains three full-fledged concept albums, one of them more than 70 minutes long. They are a thinking person’s band.

And yet, everything they do is simply loaded with heart, bursting with emotion. There are moments in Marillion songs that have literally made me weepy. I get chills listening to Steve Rothery’s glorious guitar tone, whether dripping with sadness or soaring with delight. He out-Gilmours David Gilmour, and he can play rings around him, too. Marillion makes music you feel, on a strong gut level, and it’s only afterwards, when you’re really examining it, that you realize how meticulous and well-arranged their work is, how purely musical. To pinch an old title of theirs, they are the best of both worlds.

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The first Marillion album I heard was Clutching at Straws, during my freshman year of college in 1992. It was thanks to Jess Quinn, a former student who had returned to direct a play I was acting in called You Were Born on a Rotten Day. (The actors ended up renaming it You Were Cast in a Rotten Play.) Jess lent me both Clutching and a compilation called Six of One, Half Dozen of the Other, celebrating both men – Fish and Steve Hogarth – who have fronted Marillion through the years.

I loved Clutching at Straws. I bought it on cassette almost immediately. But I will admit that the more recent material on the compilation didn’t pique my interest, so I lost track of the band for years. In 2001, I found them again, and bought the whole catalog on CD. The stuff I didn’t like on Six of One turned out to be not so bad in retrospect, and not at all representative of the albums. And the records I hadn’t heard between 1992 and 2001, well… wow. Some of them I now consider among my all-time favorites.

I have been ludicrously lax concerning Marillion and this column, a fact I hope to rectify over the next few weeks. For a band that sits so highly on my list to have received almost no analysis on this site is just plain silly. Both Marillion and their former frontman Fish have released career-defining albums this year – Marillion with the mammoth two-disc Marbles and Fish with the powerful Field of Crows – and this is the perfect time to explore their work in depth.

What follows is an attempt to define what makes this band so magical to me. I’m hoping in the process to turn a few people on to Marillion as well, considering that they’re largely ignored in the United States and only marginally better regarded in Europe. The band’s fans are mobilizing to take the new single, “You’re Gone,” straight to number one in the UK charts next week, and it would be great to see them get more exposure. Anything I can do to help that effort out would be my pleasure.

We’re going to start this week by exploring the early days of the band and the solo career of Fish, but we’ll catch up with Hogarth Marillion next week, and hopefully cap it all off with a review of Marbles. (I still don’t have my pre-ordered copy…) Buckle up, boys and girls.

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Script for a Jester’s Tear (1983)

Marillion formed in Aylesbury, England, in 1981, and right from the start, the focus was on Fish. His real name is Derek William Dick, he’s an impressively tall Scotsman, and his theatrical delivery on stage became the focal point of the group’s buzz. Fish would dress up in war paint and prance about, always holding an audience’s attention in the palm of his hand. His voice was, and still is, unique and captivating. And his lyrics, though sometimes wordy, were literate and cutting.

But behind Fish was a band, and in the rush to create a legend from its lead singer, the press would often overlook the skill of the musicians who provided the lifeblood. Guitarist Steve Rothery, bassist Pete Trewavas and keyboardist Mark Kelly (drummer Mick Pointer would be replaced by Ian Mosley after Script) attacked epic tracks with aplomb. Marillion was heavily influenced by early Genesis at this point, with Fish in full Peter Gabriel mode and Kelly running through a full array of Tony Banks synth sounds, but in the early ‘80s, there weren’t many people playing this sort of thing. And Rothery really showed his stuff with his extended solos.

As you may expect, Script for a Jester’s Tear, the band’s debut, is full of progressive epics and sounds very 1970s. It contains a mere six songs, five of which run more than seven minutes each. It’s dressed up in a cover painting by Mark Wilkinson that puts it squarely in the Genesis camp. There’s no mistaking this for anything other than what it is. And it’s an image that has haunted Marillion to this day, with many in the British press accusing them of writing about goblins and dragons. Which, by the way, they never did.

No, there’s no mistaking this for anything but a progressive rock record, and in that vein, it’s a very good one. It opens with Fish crooning a sad lament (“So here I am once more, in the playground of the broken hearts…”), which instantly sets Marillion’s brand of prog apart – it’s autobiographical, from Fish’s point of view, with an undercurrent of deep feeling. In contrast, “Garden Party” is a bit of a romp, and the band still plays it live sometimes. Fish only steps into the ludicrous once – “Forgotten Sons” is difficult to take seriously, with its chanted amens. But overall, Script is an enduring, if derivative, album.

Fugazi (1984)

By the Fugazi sessions, Pointer was out and Mosley was in, and the core of the band was in place. The primary lineup (Rothery, Trewavas, Kelly and Mosley) hasn’t changed in 20 years. And with the new group in place, Marillion rushed into the studio to record their second album. In retrospect, even the band members agree that they may have taken it too quickly.

It’s hard to overstate what a sometimes difficult and angular album Fugazi is. It’s still heavily Genesis-influenced, only this time some of the early Collins material seems to squeak in, especially on “Jigsaw.” And there’s a keyboard moment on “Emerald Lies” that sounds like vintage Banks. Lyrically, it’s angry and depressing – Fish really lays it all out there on this one, especially in the latter half of the record. His voice shakes and trembles throughout “Emerald Lies” and “She Chameleon,” and it’s hard not to admire him for being so fearless.

But when I say this record is difficult, I mean it. More than any other Marillion record, this one took some time to get into. There are three catchy songs, and they’re all up front, leaving the remainder of the album to lengthy, shifting, meandering pieces dripping with bile. Hearing “She Chameleon,” “Incubus” and the first half of the title track all in a row might be a bit much for anyone the first time. It’s a slow, creeping record, but it turns about for the final section of the title track. Fugazi, by the way, means “all fucked up,” an apt description of the mental state of the lyricist.

This is a good album, upon repeated listens, but not as good as its predecessor. These songs only live on in Fish’s live sets, and even then only occasionally. Hogarth steadfastly refuses to sing anything from this one, and given the personal nature of the lyrics, I don’t blame him a bit.

Misplaced Childhood (1985)

For most older fans, this was their introduction to Marillion. “Kayleigh” was a huge hit everywhere but here in the U.S., and in fact U.K. fans of the band are really sick of hearing about it. That’s partially because it’s a really sappy song, with pretty standard love song lyrics and an insidious chorus that grabs hold of your brain and won’t let go. It was Marillion’s first pop song, and while it was a decent, even lovely attempt, it wasn’t at all representative of the band or their third album. It does win you over, though, especially Rothery’s simply wonderful solo after the first chorus.

The album, now, that’s another story entirely. The band took it upon themselves to write their first concept album, a 41-minute piece of music only separated by record sides. Fish took some mushrooms and came up with the concept: a man who has just lost the love of his life is visited by his boyhood self for some introspection. Fish used his own dissolving relationship with his own Kayleigh as inspiration, and Misplaced Childhood is a remarkably moving album because of it.

Since the theme of the album dealt with childhood and innocence, many of the musical themes became, of necessity, simple and small. Misplaced is a 41-minute song made up of dozens of little movements, very few of which can stand on their own. But it retains a musical and thematic consistency throughout. It collapses by the end – “White Feather” really doesn’t seem to belong, and it’s too simple a song – but as a single piece, it succeeds. This was Marillion’s first stab at extended song forms, and they learned lessons from it that they incorporated into every lengthy piece they wrote from here out.

Many consider Misplaced Childhood to be the band’s masterpiece, and it’s certainly the one for which they are best remembered. Sections of the album, like the great breakdown in “Blind Curve” and the guitar intro to “Childhood’s End,” are full of deep feeling, and while it would be out of character for me to call this album a classic, it would be an easily forgivable leap. Fish still plays most of this album live, and in fact has recently started performing it in its entirety at special shows. And even Hogarth is known to bust out “Kayleigh” now and then.

Clutching at Straws (1987)

Anyone who gave the lyrics to Marillion’s fourth album a close read couldn’t have been surprised when Fish exited the band in 1989. Clutching is a concept album about drinking your life away, and it finds Fish examining the “drinks like a…” connotation of his stage name to its fullest. It is also the band’s most fully realized effort with their original lead singer, a perfectly paced collection of lovely, sad songs that aim for the heart.

It opens with a trilogy about hanging out in bars, the middle part of which, “Warm Wet Circles,” is simply devastating. Its simple metaphor hides an ocean of pain and regret. This is an album that flows so brilliantly that by the time you realize how long you’ve been listening to it, you’re done. Rothery is at his finest here – his solo sections are beautiful, restrained and heartfelt. But the band truly gels on this album, with each member contributing to the whole. There aren’t any bad songs here, and there are some terrific ones, including the epic “White Russian” and the hopelessly sad “Sugar Mice.” If the band made a masterpiece with Fish, then this is it.

Fish has called parts of Clutching his resignation letter to the band, and it’s true. It’s an album full of self-loathing and recrimination, but it’s all wrapped up in such soul-wringing pain, and covered in a misty fog of half-awaken memory. Fish had said all he could with Marillion, and he left on the highest of high notes. Needless to say, I could listen to this album all day and not be bored with it, and if this column convinces you to buy any of Marillion’s albums with Fish, I think you should choose this one.

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It’s constantly amusing to me that fans of early Marillion assumed that the band would fall apart without Fish, and that the singer would go on to a successful solo career. It’s a testament to Fish’s charisma that many thought the band was all about him, when in fact Fish would have to build a career with one-fifth of the Marillion sound, while the band still retained four-fifths. I would have given Marillion the better shot, provided they chose the right singer.

Fish, on the other hand, will always be at the mercy of his collaborators, since he plays no instruments. Hence his solo career is a spotty one, sliding from peaks to valleys and back again. Some of Fish’s solo work is downright embarrassing, but some is excellent. Along the way, both his voice and his lyrical ability seem to have atrophied, and his later material finds him singing in a much lower register, often with female backing vocalists to aid him.

Fish is still an extraordinary live performer, however. He’s bald, paunchy and aging at this point, but he still commands a crowd like few can. He’s amazing to watch. And when he gets the right group of musicians behind him, he can still make a great record. Fish has also made some disastrous business decisions that have cost him label support, and he’s taken his dedicated fanbase online, distributing his records himself. His Chocolate Frog Records has released his last two studio albums and a slew of live records and re-releases.

Fish’s solo catalog is littered with live albums, acoustic records, re-recordings and best-ofs. He’s released 29 solo CDs, and only eight of them are new studio recordings. Sifting through the mountain of material is daunting, but the good stuff is worth it.

Universally respected as his best work, Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors came out in 1990. The definition of “best” in this case means “sounds the most like Marillion,” of course, and this one does. The nearly nine-minute title track is one of Fish’s finest songs, and though he loses points for a pair of catchy dance numbers, he gets them back for the beautiful piano number “A Gentleman’s Excuse Me” and the concluding trilogy of solid songs. “Cliché” is a great love song, as well, and this album also includes “The Company,” which has become a Fish anthem, appearing at the end of virtually every concert he’s performed as a solo artist.

He rushed the follow-up, 1991’s Internal Exile, and it shows. He dips into adult pop balladry on “Just Good Friends” and “Dear Friend,” although both have their moments, and stumbles entirely with “Favourite Stranger.” Still, the album includes “Credo” and “Lucky,” two tunes that became staples of the live show, and the title track, which finds the big man embracing Scottish nationalism.

The less said about Songs From the Mirror, the better. Contractually bound for one more record, Fish delivered a covers disc in 1992, and the high points (Pink Floyd’s “Fearless,” Sandy Denny’s “Solo”) are practically drowned in embarrassing takes on Argent, Yes and Genesis songs. Between that and the six double live albums he subsequently released, Fish tried the patience of a lot of fans. The Mirror tour, however, produced the excellent live record Sushi, so it wasn’t all a loss.

Suits, released in 1994 on Fish’s own Dick Bros. label, was supposed to be a comeback, but its loping dance grooves and ultra-long songs put people off. It’s not a bad album, but it’s not a great one either, and good tunes like “Lady Let it Lie” and “Raw Meat” share disc space with lousy bits like “No Dummy” and “Bandwagon.” Fish seemed to be on a downward slide, and his insistence on releasing more live albums and a two-disc re-recordings project (Yin and Yang) only served to confirm this.

If you’re going to make a comeback, make it a big one, I always say, and Fish did so with Sunsets on Empire in 1997. It’s a big, loud, angry record full of guitars and snarling vocals, and featuring some of the best songs the Fishy One can claim under his own name. “The Perception of Johnny Punter” is an eight-minute Led Zeppelin workout, “Goldfish and Clowns” is catchy and well-written, and “Brother 52” sets its anti-government polemic to rollicking guitars and organs. Bring it home with a seven-minute title track that sounds like the best of Roger Waters’ stuff, and you have the best Fish record since Vigil, easily.

Sunsets seemed to kick off a modern Fish renaissance, as 1999’s Raingods With Zippos was also quite good. The first half pales in comparison to the side-long epic “Plague of Ghosts,” a techno-influenced suite that runs for 25 minutes and still feels too short. Raingods also began Fish’s short time with Roadrunner Records, who re-released all the older albums and some of the live discs.

That relationship was short-lived, and Fish returned to his own label for Fellini Days, a collaboration with Floridian guitarist John Wesley, in 2001. Fellini proved to be another valley, for while it had a couple of good tracks, all of them dragged on too long, and some were well below par. The production also drowned everything in Wesley’s guitar, even quieter pieces like “Obligatory Ballad.” And Fish’s voice showed obvious signs of wear on nearly every track. As with every less-than-great album he makes, Fish’s fans wondered whether he’d finally lost it.

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Which brings us to 2004.

And would you believe Fish has just put out the best album of his solo career?

Field of Crows doesn’t officially hit shops until April 19, but Fish has been selling it from his website since December. I’ve had it since early January. Often Fish albums take time to worm their way into my brain, and assessing them after one or two listens often results in an incomplete picture. I can usually tell, however, which songs will be growers and which will sit and fester, and Fish has done his fair share of both.

Field of Crows is immediate. It takes hold right away, and only gets better each time you play it. It is the most straightforward rock album he has made, and yet it contains passages of great intensity, quiet moments that move unlike anything he’s made since Vigil. This is, finally, an album that shows Fish at the top of his game, one in which every song contributes to the whole. There are no bad tracks, and there are some songs here that are better than anything Fish has ever done.

It’s worth pointing out that my definition of “best” does not mean “sounds most like Marillion.” Fish has evolved throughout his solo career into an earthy, rootsy singer. His voice has dropped and decayed, much like Bob Dylan’s, so his natural timbre now is low, rumbly and full of menace. There is more weight, more gravity to his voice now, and he wrings passion from it in completely different ways than he did with Marillion.

The music is decidedly different as well, and those searching for a sequel to Clutching at Straws will be disappointed. Fish has reunited most of the musicians who helped him make Vigil for this album, but Crows is guitar-fueled rock and roll for much of its running time. Songs like “Moving Targets,” “The Rookie,” “Old Crow” and “Numbers” groove along on nasty, tasty guitar riffs, Fish spitting and snarling his way through them like a wolverine. Above all, Field of Crows is loud, but catchy as a flu virus.

I don’t want to give the impression that Crows is, musically speaking, like an AC/DC album, all rock and no heart, though. Opener “The Field” is an eight-minute folksy dirge, which consistently builds to a repeated refrain, complete with horn section. “The Lost Plot” is perhaps the most Marillion-like song here, carried along by sweet repeated keyboards. “Exit Wound” is a bluesy ballad. And halfway through the epic “Innocent Party,” the whole album changes.

That song, a jackhammer attack for four of its seven minutes, blossoms into a piano-driven wonder. And from that point on, the character Fish is playing sees the light. “Shot the Craw” is one of the big man’s best ballads, this one in 7/4 time and full of beautiful guitar sounds, courtesy of longtime collaborator Frank Usher. “Scattering Crows,” the closer, starts off weakly, but quickly becomes the most emotional piece here, and it concludes on a surprising yet resonant note. Field of Crows starts on top of the world and ends gently (yet mercilessly) back on the ground. It is entirely emotionally satisfying.

It’s also Fish’s first genuine concept album since Clutching. It’s about selling out one’s principles, about the moment when one realizes, with intense regret, just what one has given up to attain a position one no longer wants. It’s also about a body in a field, and how that body got there. During the journey, the album references 9/11 and takes aim at American foreign policies, and everything works toward the theme. Animal metaphors also abound, particularly in “Zoo Class” and “Old Crow.” This is the most complete set of lyrics Fish has composed in more than a decade.

His is also one of the most coherent responses to 9/11 I have heard. “Innocent Party” is the song that most directly addresses the tragedy, using America as a metaphor for his character’s fall:

“You once had the world at your feet, but your conscience wandered in clouds,
You lost sight of your goals, your vision was blurred when the towers one day disappeared,
Everyone stared, no one believed as the images burned on our screens,
That a world had just changed, the dream evaporates, no more innocent parties…”

The album, as a whole, is about finally remembering what is important, and Fish’s use of the world situation emphasizes his point with stunning clarity. I am slightly uncomfortable with the final destination of the plotline in relation to the imagery, but you can’t say Fish hasn’t carefully considered this album. He obviously worked intensely on Field of Crows, both on the solid music and the even more solid lyrics, and it’s the crown jewel of his solo career.

It’s also probably his last. Fish has expressed a desire to get out of recording and touring, and he’s said that he can’t imagine topping Field of Crows next time out. Fish turns 46 on April 25 (or 25 April, as he would say), and he’s had a good long run, both with Marillion and as a solo artist. If it turns out that Crows is his final record, well, it’s a good way to go out, but it would be a shame. His work still feels vital and invigorating, and his voice is singular and unique. It would be unfortunate to lose such a voice to the financial realities of independent music-making, especially since he’s still capable of making records like Field of Crows.

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Wow, this column is huge, and it’s only part one. I guess I just need to get this obsession off my back, so thanks for coming along.

Marillion’s material is all available here. Fish’s can be purchased here. Next week, a man called H takes the stage.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I feel guilty.

I should have mentioned Wonderfalls, the new show put together by Angel producer Tim Minear. I should have tried to get people to watch it, because it was quirky and wonderful and had the makings of something really special. But I kept quiet, thinking that within six episodes or so I could see whether this little show would blossom into something amazing. It certainly could have.

But Fox killed it this weekend, after only four episodes. Three of those ran on Friday nights, in a traditional death slot for new shows, and the final one ran on Thursday opposite The Apprentice. It had no chance. And I’m sure there will be a DVD release eventually, collecting the 13 episodes that were filmed, but of all the shows that premiered this year, Wonderfalls had the best chance of painting on a wider canvas than television normally does. I’d bet that year three would have been incredible.

And now we’ll never know.

If you count Angel, which begins airing its final six episodes next week, then this is two shows that Minear has worked on that have gotten the boot this year. It seems like a concerted effort to wipe out any and all thoughtful television before summer starts. The shame is, I just know Fox is going to replace Wonderfalls with some new reality crapfest like Who Wants to Marry a Big Fat Obnoxious Midget, and even more shamefully, America will watch that one.

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I’ve fallen a bit behind in new release news as well, so here are a few upcoming albums I’m jazzed about:

Prince returns on April 20 with Musicology, and what I’ve heard has been fantastic. I hope he never loses this new band he’s formed, especially John Blackwell on drums and Rhonda Smith on bass. It’s the best rhythm section he’s ever had. As far as other new records for April, it’s slim pickings, with only Joe Satriani, Sophie B. Hawkins and an EP from BT capturing any attention at all. I was hoping for the new Tears for Fears album, Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, but financial troubles at Arista Records have caused that one to be shelved for the time being.

May is not much better, with a new Magnetic Fields on the fourth proving to be the high point so far. We’ll also see records from Peter Salett, Vernon Reid, Lenny Kravitz and Slipknot, as well as the final installment in a trilogy of discs from Pedro the Lion. The new one’s called Achilles Heel. Zipping forward to June, we have the new Joy Electric, Hello Mannequin, on the first. I’ve been lax in reviewing JE in the past, so I promise to get to this one.

June 8 sees an upswing, with Bad Religion’s The Empire Strikes First (I just love typing out that title), Cowboy Junkies’ One Soul Now, PJ Harvey’s Uh Hu Her (taking the prize for year’s worst title so far), Ministry’s Houses of the Mole and Fastball’s return, Keep Your Wig On. The new Wilco, A Ghost is Born, has been pushed back to June 22 so that Jeff Tweedy can finish rehab before the tour. The album does contain two songs that blow past 10 minutes in length, which is always an enticement for me.

And that’s about it for now. Summer release announcements should start cropping up soon, otherwise this is going to be a boring year…

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I’d like to think I’d have discovered Todd Rundgren on my own eventually. As it is, though, I owe my vast Rundgren collection entirely to Mike Ferrier.

Mike has always been a computer kid, and for as long as I’ve known him he’s been fascinated by digital animation and computer generated effects. We made a couple of video flicks in high school that gave Mike the chance to show off his skills on his new Commodore Amiga (remember those?), and his immersion in that mighty machine’s graphics capability led him to Todd Rundgren. Or, more specifically, to Todd Rundgren’s video for “Change Myself,” released in 1991 and created on the Amiga. As a Christmas present that year, he bought me 2nd Wind, and a love affair began instantly.

Between me and Todd’s music, not me and Mike, you pervert.

I haven’t seen the “Change Myself” video in more than 10 years now, but I still listen to 2nd Wind, and that album launched me on the path toward collecting every one of Rundgren’s 19 albums, as well as his 10 records with Utopia, as well as numerous live records (including multi-disc live box sets from both Rundgren and Utopia last year). Rundgren is a restless artist, constantly flitting from one style to another, and always seeking out new technology and new ways of communicating his vision. For more than 30 years, he’s been making intelligent, tuneful music, usually with a splash of novelty.

Almost a decade ago, however, Rundgren turned to internet distribution, handing out songs and samples to his dedicated fans via a subscription service called PatroNet. Like most artists who explore this kind of thing, Rundgren started concentrating on singles and studio experiments and stopped making albums. His last full disc of new stuff, The Individualist, came out in 1995, and since then, we’ve feasted on scraps – remix records, live recordings, a best-of done bossa nova style, and a hodgepodge of PatroNet tunes called One Long Year. (That record, admittedly, had some gems, including the hilariously geeky “I Hate My Frickin’ ISP.”) While these were all fun projects, I wrote off the possibility of a whole new Rundgren album years ago.

And of course, just to confound expectation once again, there is now a whole new Rundgren album called Liars, released on Tuesday. If you’ve drifted away from following Todd’s career of late, you need to know this: Liars is not a mix-and-match collection of songs Rundgren had tucked away, it is not a remix project, and it is not another rehash. This is a bona fide new album, 74 minutes long, featuring 14 new songs. And the funniest cover photo you’re likely to see this year.

The good news keeps on coming, too: Liars contains the best group of songs Rundgren has given us since Nearly Human in 1989. With untruth as his theme, Rundgren has delivered some of his sweetest melodies in more than a decade, and used them to convey some of his angriest and most bitter lyrics ever. He rails against governments, religion and bad relationships, pointing out the festering cancer in each one – we rarely tell the truth. We’re all liars.

The album starts with a song called “Truth,” and ends with one called “Liar.” And in between the two extremes, Rundgren searches for veracity and meaning. “I’m gonna find the truth,” he swears at the album’s beginning, but by the end, all he’s uncovered are lies. There are lies of gender, used to keep us apart, in “Happy Anniversary”: “Men are stupid, women are evil, and that’s the way it’s got to be.” There are lies of education and leadership in “Stood Up”: “As soon as I was boss, the next one in line took my head clean off, ‘cause I stood up too fast.” Even music is a lie these days, as he details in “Soul Brother”: “We’re only here to entertain, and just pretend to be in pain… It’s a distraction, I’m told, I use it to hide my total lack of soul…”

The album is neatly subdivided by two central tracks, placed back to back, and titled “Future” and “Past.” In these sad laments, Rundgren notes that the past is gone and the promised future has never arrived. Both are lies, and his narrative voice plainly illustrates what happens if you believe in either one. “Where’s the better world that was declared at the 1964 World’s Fair?” he asks, and later admits that “my todays are gray, the seconds tick away.”

Naturally, Rundgren saves his most savage attacks for the realms of political and religious manipulation. Todd is a die-hard empiricist, refusing to believe in anything he cannot physically prove, and he holds those who dedicate their lives to any faith in contempt. He takes aim at greedy religions in “Mammon,” and then goes so far as to take up the voice of God on “God Said,” only to have the supreme being deny his own existence.

Quite a funny paradox in that song – he seems to be saying that believers will only accept that God does not exist if he tells them so personally, but by the very act of doing so, he’d be proving that he exists. Still, it’s a magnificent song, effectively using God’s voice to recommend personal responsibility: “I don’t dwell upon you, I dwell on something else, and I am not really here, so get over yourself,” he says, and then delivers the capper with “You will kill in my name and heaven knows what else, when you can’t prove I exist…”

“Liar” is the most incendiary track here, so naturally it closes the record. Its lyrics are evenly divided, with one half ripping on Islamic terrorist manipulators and the other on American arrogance, and both targets receiving a screaming repetition of the title phrase. “And with every lying breath, you send them to their death,” he spits, savaging both us and them equally. It’s the first time I have seen anyone equate America’s lies with Al Qaeda’s, and it’s certainly bold.

Given the piss and venom that pulses through these lyrics, you’ll probably be surprised by the insanely tuneful music. The best way I have found to describe the album’s sound is this: imagine Hall and Oates meeting the Chemical Brothers. And even that doesn’t quite do it. The album is full of whirring techno drums and plastic bass lines, but the songs (with a couple of exceptions) are all blue-eyed soul workouts. Rundgren played virtually all the instruments himself, using a computerized composition program, and though the result is almost completely synthetic, his warm and wide vocals add more than enough humanity to the proceedings. Just check out his soulful turn on “Afterlife.”

There’s a layer of (likely unintended) irony to the sound as well. The synth voices are all meant to emulate drums, bass guitars, pianos and strings, even though none of them quite get there. So in a way, every instrument on the album is lying to you, hence enhancing the theme. You would be forgiven for thinking that 74 minutes of synthesized pop might seem like a chore to sit through, but this is an extremely quick 74 minutes, vaulted along by Rundgren’s unceasing sense of melody and harmony. It may have been improved by real instruments, no doubt, and I would like to hear a live run-through of this record at some point, but even as it is, this is quite the Todd Rundgren album.

And even with all the anger on display, Rundgren keeps his sense of humor and never lets the album tumble into didactic moralizing. And hey, if Rundgren can slip his observations about truth and manipulation into the public consciousness coated in sugary harmony, then more power to him. After more than a decade away, Todd Rundgren has racked one in the win column with Liars, an idiosyncratic and uncompromising artistic and political statement cleverly disguised as one hell of a pop record.

* * * * *

Those sick of hearing about Marillion from me may want to steer clear of this column for the next few weeks. I’m taking some time to explore the history and future of this band, including reviews of their new one, Marbles, and the latest from their former frontman Fish, Field of Crows. I’m starting with Fish next week, mostly because I don’t have Marbles yet – the pre-order edition has been shipped from England but has not yet arrived on these shores. Next week, though, for certain, I will get my hands on it.

For the time being, I’m salivating over pictures of the pre-order package, posted online by one of the chaps from the Marillion message board. Want a look? Okay, go here.

Pretty, isn’t it?

See you in line Tuesday morning.