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Rating: After a therapeutic break obtained at the end of the long and grueling tour of "Holidays in Eden", a tour that, among other things, confirmed the robustness of the band's live performances as well as a clear improvement in Steve Hogarth who, having learned from some vocal shortcomings of the previous tour, enriched his technical repertoire and delivered almost always impeccable performances, Marillion decided to return to the studio to work on new material.
The ideas are always numerous, all the members of the band want to overcome the impasse created by the previous album, they want at all costs to erase the word "commercial" from the explanatory label placed under their name, essentially they want to return to their primary identity.
The first decision made is to emigrate, so they go to France, specifically to a castle in the South of France, where the equipment is transported, two 24-channel mixers, and God only knows how many and which sound effects. Inspiration comes quickly, the first recordings are made with the drum set placed in what was originally the study of the Lord of the Manor, the guitars in the Ballroom, the vocal setup in the bedroom, which turns out to have also been used in the past by the Queen Mother of England. Absolutely natural effects from inside the Castle, from the stream flowing outside, from stones and strange animals, from the voices of the musicians' children are also recorded and brought back to England upon returning home.
Once at home, Marillion do not use the usual Hook End Studio but a warehouse set up as a recording room, the first developing songs are brought to completion by producer (Dave Meegan, returning to his position replacing the muddled Chris Neil, mainly responsible for some overly commercial pieces of the previous record) and the band, but this work still does not have a precise musical identity, and there are really few ideas regarding the lyrics.
But fate comes to the rescue in the most fortuitous guise: one ordinary afternoon Steve Hogarth is stuck in traffic and coincidentally listens to the radio just as the police in the Bristol area (presumably) broadcasts a message asking if anyone listening knows a strange girl in a panic and dangerously leaning on the railing of the Severn Bridge Motorway (a bridge that connects England to Wales). As it is illegal to walk on said Motorway, the officers picked up the young woman, who, when questioned, refuses to provide information, to say her name, or even to open her mouth. No one can understand whether she is mute, mentally unstable, what her intentions were, whether she wanted to jump off the bridge, or if she was just taking a walk...who knows.
The radio announcement reaches directly to the heart of the writer within Steve's unconscious, which creates a solid starting point for some fantastic fiction work. Hogarth increases his activity, the songs quickly take shape, it becomes clear that the pieces are perfectly linkable and that the story being told has something mysterious and sublime about it. It is immediately understood that this will be a work of substance. The same EMI is clearly briefed by the band on the type of album about to be completed, and this time the record company doesn't interfere, leaving everything in the hands of the band and producer.
Finally, after meticulous and exhausting work, "Brave" appears on the shelves of stores and megastores. It's 1994. Just start listening to "Bridge" and "Living With The Big Lie" to realize that it is a masterpiece album in every aspect. Marillion have returned to prog, it's not the early days of "Script for a Jester Tear" or "Fugazi"...it's something different, something no one had done before, it's an alternation of romantic and dark melodies and majestic developments (I’m referring to "Runaway" and "Goodbye to All That") of vocal lines sometimes extreme and sometimes very low and gloomy, always superbly interpreted by the best Steve Hogarth, sparkling choral ensembles ("Alone Again In The Lap Of Luxury"), typically rock riffs ("Hard As Love") combined with atmospheres that we might also call ethnic ("Brave", "Paper Lies" or "Made Again") and the standout track, the fantastic "The Great Escape" which opens with a piano-voice of mystical reasoning to close in a whole so perfect as to send shivers down the spine. It's a masterful album that required particularly daunting commitment primarily for everything concerning the arrangement of pieces for live performances (in some tracks there are even up to nine guitar tracks), with all the band members sharing more tasks to perform in a unison that does not admit any smudge.
Marillion also decide not to shoot any video for "Brave" but to create a short film (also available in an excellent DVD version with many extras) capable of captivating the viewer's attention on both the musical pieces and the story being told. The film obviously narrates, with the fanciful corrections of the case, the story of the girl picked up on the Severn Bridge. The Marillion themselves appear in it several times, engaged in performing the pieces. How to conclude a dissertation on "Brave", unanimously defined by critics and listeners as "the symbol album of prog in the '90s"...I wouldn’t know...I would say with the only adjective it deserves: perfect. The ultimate absolute degree, perhaps unattainable, in Marillion's career.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Bridge (02:55)
A bridge is not a high place...
Staring out over the bridge
A million photo flashes from the water down below
Dawn light bouncing through the mist
Roar of traffic and the crack of police radios
When they ask her name
Would she please explain
She simply chooses to say
Nothing
03 Runaway (04:40)
Did you cry when they dragged you home
Put a lock on the door and the telephone
Was a runaway girl all they could see
Have the nights and the days that you've come through
Made the right seem wrong and the false seem true
Was a runaway girl all they could see
A teenage extra from the satellite TV
Runaway girl
Too bad, too bad
Runaway girl
Too wild, too wild
Were they deaf to the prayer behind your lies
Maybe they didn't dare to ask you why
Was a runaway girl all they chose to see
All they were prepared to admit to
Runaway girl
Too bad, too bad
Runaway girl
A real wild child
So you cower in the towns forgotten places
And you make your bed with unfamiliar faces
And at last you've got your freedom but that's all you've got
You're tryin' to make your mind up if you're better off
You pretend to wait for washing in some laundromat
But you're damned if you'll give them the satisfaction of you going back
You'd freeze to death before you'd share a roof with them
And you'd starve before you'd let him get his hands on you again
Did you cry when they dragged you home
Did you cry when they dragged you home
Poor little runaway, poor little runaway
04 Goodbye to All That: (i) Wave - (ii) Mad - (iii) The Opium Den - (iv) The Slide - (v) Standing in the Swing (12:26)
05 Hard as Love (06:41)
Well I hear that you were looking out to hunt me down
And I guess you're used to having everything you want
But you know that love can be as hard as sticks and stones
I tell you nothing else can be as hard as love can
Well I hear you got my number and you want my name
I'm a stream of noughts and crosses in your R-A-M
But you know that love can be as hard as algebra
Baby nothing else has ever been as hard as love
Hard as love
Well I hear that you were lookin' out to take me home
And I hear that you can handle it and you're not scared
Have you heard about the pictures on my bedroom wall?
Baby nothing else has ever been as hard as love
Hard as love
Well it makes you hungry and it makes you high
It makes you suffer and it makes you cry
But it's all worthwhile
It makes you humble and it makes you crawl
It makes you tremble and it makes you fall
But it's all worthwhile
It makes you desperate and it makes you dream
It makes you dangerous and it makes you scream
But it's all worthwhile
Just lie back and smile
"We will continue to love you even though the rest of the world hates you."
It makes you hungry and it makes you high
It makes you suffer and it makes you cry
It makes you panic and it makes you vain
It makes you primitive and sick inside
It makes you angry and it makes you blind
It makes you guilty and it makes you lie
Tied up and beaten
Spat out and eaten
Suicidal
Nothing's ever been as hard
Well I hear that were lookin' out to change my faith
You can bash me with your book of words, hammer me down
But you know that love can be as hard as six inch nails
Baby nothing else has ever been as hard as love
Hard as love
09 Brave (07:56)
(Music: Marillion Lyrics: Steve Hogarth & John Helmer)
What a brave, brave girl
Never lied before
Such a plain deceit
Everyone would eventually know ...
What a brave, brave girl
Never loved before
Placed herself in reach ...
So he tried ... in his own way
To find the heart of the tight-packed rose
She's gone now
But oh, she aches
She aches
He will search until he's found
A way to take the days
See her sadness in your face
She's inside you
And she's crying
11 Made Again (05:02)
I have been here many times before
In a life I used to live
But I have never seen these streets so fresh
Washed with morning rain
I have seen this face a thousand times
Every morning of my life
But I never saw these eyes so clear
Free of doubt and pain
Like the whole world has been made again
I have been here many times before
In a life I used to live...
And it's all because you made me see
What is false and what is true
Like the inside and the outside of me
Is being made again by you
And it's all because you made me see
What is false and what is true
Like the inside and the outside of me
Has been made again by you
Like a bright new morning
Like a bright new day
I woke up from a deep sleep
I woke up from a bad dream
To a brand new morning
To a brand new day
Like the whole world has been made again
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