Marillion
Holydays In Eden

1990: The “Season’s End Tour” has triumphantly concluded, a spectacular success that reached its peak with the Brazilian leg, sold-out stadiums, a success involving all the members of the English band, the entire management, the crew, and everyone who contributed to the success of a tour initially met with skepticism due to the leadership change in the group, thus a bet won by those who chose Steve Hogarth as the new “general” of the Marillica team, who, even with some breath shortages, especially during consecutive nights, managed to win the hearts of fans (to the great surprise mixed with obvious immense satisfaction of the band members themselves), did not make them forget "Fish", and no one ever asked him to do so, but absolutely did not make anyone miss him, on the contrary.

It is thus time to get back to work for the new Marillion and produce the first album entirely managed together with H, since the excellent "Season’s End" was already well underway before the arrival of the young vocalist, contributing nonetheless.
The work is intense and quite inspired, especially by the alcohol that the musicians admit to having consumed abundantly during the sessions breaks, in a writing Mark Kelly (keyboardist) tells us about an evening when everyone, completely full of tequila, dressed like Mexicans with poncho and sombrero and danced the rumba on tables for hours...
The real dilemma (because things never go smoothly...) is marked by the unbelievable replacement of the producer. This cuts the legs off the band, accustomed to being produced in a particular way and to create recordings, sound fusions, and final recordings with calm and obsessive control by the producer. Moreover, the EMI label wants tracks with immediate impact and that appeal to the charts and radio stations.
For all these reasons, the mixing and final versions of the tracks are prepared in just ten weeks by Chris Neil (famous for having packaged chart-busting singles repeatedly), a very short and absolutely inappropriate time for a refined band like Marillion. The result is understandably disheartening, many keyboard pieces by Mark Kelly (who particularly dislikes the matter) are cut by the producer, the guitar solos are shortened and reduced to the bone, the duration of the pieces is resized, and practically a completely different album from what the band had prepared during the elaboration phase is released to the market. Only the splendid elegies of an always poetic Steve Hogarth remain, in collaboration with John Helmer.

"Holidays in Eden", this is the title of the LP, is released in late 1991 (EMI will later offer a great remaster in 1998 complete with a second CD full of demo and out-takes, as for all Marillion albums produced by them until the end of the house-group relationship), and is anticipated by the single Cover My Eyes (Pain and Heaven). Already in this track you “enjoy” the imposing cassette substance imposed by the record label. The track is quite pale, truly easy-listening rock, liked by people, which sells a lot... needless to say, since it was created with this assumption, but the supporters certainly do not go into ascetic intoxication when listening to the groove, being accustomed to quite another sound. But let's tell the truth: what fan has never sung out loud the theme of Cover My Eyes? We all have and will do it again, the track is commercial, and for this reason distracted but pleasing, an attraction for the masses, still loved today in concerts, hence it’s useless to demolish it more than necessary. Just like other tracks, for example This Town, Holidays in Eden or No One Can (the latter really depressing).
Saved from the wreck, however, is the opening track Splintering Heart, a well-conceived prog rock, The Party, a beautiful slow minor-key track with a good melody and vocal line, 100 Nights, and Dry Land (the latter is practically a rearranged cover, as it is the lead track of the only album by How We Live, Steve Hogarth's former band, distributed by CBS a few years prior), the latter can perhaps be defined as the best result of a horrible and summary production as well as of a management too aligned to the pay of pop by EMI, which bring “Holidays in Eden” to be without any doubt one of the worst discographic releases by Marillion.
Artistically a half (possibly even three-quarters) cataclysm, yet it sold...

But the “MarillionManiacs” should not torment themselves, in three years the afflictions will be compensated with interest...