Misplaced Childhood
Brilliant, a truly masterpiece
Well I’m not going to pretend, this is my first Marillion’s album and I just bought it two weeks ago. There are lots of story behind it (buying the CD) actually, firstly, a friend of mine, Gatot is his name, which is a member here : ) always talk about Marillion’s Misplaced Childhood. Moreover, his picture on progarchives is this album’s CD cover. This really makes me think that the album is reaaaaaaaly good, possibly too good. Another thing is that when I listened to a song from Misplaced Childhood on this site, Childhood. Ends ?. It was when I realized how great is this album (well, at that time, just a song actually) and also because its somewhat similar to Dream Theater’s Take Away My Pain.
Alright, back to the album. Based on my research, this album is Marillion’s most successful album, very commercial if you would like to say that. It was released in 1985, but the one that I bought was the remastered edition, in 2002, but I’m pretty sure the songs have no different whatsoever. This album was also Marillion’s first concept album, the story was about a lost love and childhood. Also, just like many other prog albums, the cover is really great, just like the one on progarchives, but there is another side, so its just a half of the cover. Now lets go through each song.
Pseudo Silk Kimono – “Huddled in the safety of a pseudo silk kimono wearing bracelets of smoke, naked of understanding…”, that is the first line of the song. The intro is really calming and peaceful with deep bass line. For me, this song is just the beginning of the long epic, the album itself which is considered as a long song.
Kayleigh – Just a short story. When I listened this song for the first time, I didn’t realize that this song is ultimately famous, until the “do you remember…” I felt so, I don’t know, so strange, because my dad always play this song and sang loudly in the car. Well at that time, I wasn’t into progrock, so I just closed my ears. Again, I researched about this song, and I know that Kayleigh, well, it was Kay Lee actually, whose dated with Fish. Also, if you look at the lyrics, the song is more about love breaking. The song starts off with the same style from Pseudo Silk Kimono, but this time, its more “groovy” with nice bass guitar and drum combination. The composition is just like a typical song, verse, chorus then verse followed by another chorus.
Lavender – Ahh, I really love this song but its hard to choose which one is my favorite, simply because all the songs, without exception, are extremely great. “I was walking in the park dreaming of a spark…” with a calm piano sound and cool drum line. When it hits the chorus, the mood increases but somewhat the song still, like, calms the heart (well, calms my heart). Also, the guitar solo is quite simple, yet profound, really suits the song.
Bitter Suite – Sorry about this, but somehow I like to relate certain songs to Dream Theater songs : ) This one is really like Dream Theater’s Trial Of Tears with cool drum lines and nice ambience at the beginning of the song. The song itself was divided into five. The first part is just a non-melodic vocal, if you know what I mean, that Fish was like just read the lyrics. The best part for me is Blue Angle, where the piano and guitar lines really great along with cool bass and drum and I reckon is the most melodic and touching part of the song. “I can hear your heart, hear your heart…”, really great that I feel like in my own heaven. This part ends with a melody like the one in Dream Theater’s Octavarium (sorry again!!).
Heart Of Lothian – The intro is just amazing, really great yet very progressive. You can tell from the drum beat and guitar melody along “wide boys, wide boys, wide boys, born with hearts of Lothian…” The next verse was played along with nice guitar melody and deep drum lines. The climax of the song, for me is at the end of the first part, Wide Boy, “I was born with the heart of Lothian…”. While the second part is somewhat very calm and quite with a nice ambience from the keyboard
Waterhole – The song is very dynamic and very rockish. One thing is that, the second verse or maybe you consider this as the chorus, really surprised me, “… when you think its time to go, don’t be surprised, …” they way that he sang that line is just very “progressive”. The last 4 second of the song, the guitar melody and beat changes, possibly for the intro of the next song.
Lords Of Backstage – This is also a song that Om Gatot (well I called him like that) always talk about, its the “I just want you to be the first one…” part. The song is somewhat very short and is the introduction of the next song. The duration of the song is just nearly two minutes.
Blind Curve – ARHH!! This album really means everything to me, since probably this is the most beautiful album I’ve had so far (well, one of the most beautiful). Right now, I’m listening to the album and this song really is the, uh, I don’t know, its like the point of all. The intro is just amazing, cool but has very deep feeling. At the second minute, the which is the third part, the song composition is just great, very amazing, again, simple yet profound with very good vocal style. “So I talked about conscience and I talked about pain, and he looked out the window and it started to rain…”, simply amazing. Again, I want to compare this to Octavarium, that the fourth part, is somewhat like Octavarium’s fourth part (I just realized that it’s the same part!!). The vocal style is like reading a poem, without any melodic with dark and deep drum line. Slowly, the energy increases, “… the childhood, the childhood, the childhood, oh please give it back to me…” then the music “breaks” and the mood really goes up, AMAZING!! The last part is just as amazing as the other parts, really beautiful. The last guitar solo is very great, simple but great, very touching and followed by the next song.
Childhoods End ? – Yet, my favorite (well its not my “real favorite”, I just often play this song in the toilet every hour when I’m at school) song. The song starts off with cool muted guitar line and groovy drum and keyboard. The best part is the bass lines, which very jazzy groovy, well, very neo-progressive, that every I played this song using my IPod, I always push the earphone deep to my ears so I can hear the bass lines. There are two different guitar sound, distortion and nice “funk” clean style. Again,, when I compared to Dream Theater, this song is really similar to Take Away My Pain, and the guitar part is the main similarity.
White Feather – A really great song to ends the album, really energetic and dynamic. In my opinion, the song should ends in with fixed ending, not faded out. However, I still couldn’t find the relation between the story and this song since this song is more like some unity stuff.
Well, in the end, what more can I say. This is my first Marillion’s album, first neo- progressive, and someone introduced this album to me. But I never felt like this, I never enjoyed such an album although I just bought it few hours before I started to love the songs. Without any hesitation, five giant stars.
Keep On Proggin’ In The Free World!!!
