![]() Lyrically, John Helmer had also written significant contributions, so when Steve Hogarth joined it felt deceptively easy to hone this material with some added material, such as Hogarth’s ‘Easter’, into an excellent album. ‘Seasons End’ had already had a lot of the music formed with sessions with Fish that never reached fruition. Writing sessions at Stanbridge studios near Brighton were lengthy and frustrating, producing little material. What the band were finding is that working on the next release with Hogarth was simply not flowing in the same way as their experience with ‘ Seasons End’. So let’s put this album in context – It is a common perception that most bands have a ‘difficult second album’ (and Marillion certainly did so with ‘Fugazi’ with Fish in 1984!!), but uniquely somehow Marillion contrived to have a ‘second difficult second album’ as ‘Holidays in Eden’ was a far from smooth process for Steve Hogarth’s sophomore album with the band. Out of this tension developed an album which certainly divided opinion at the time, but which also produced some classic Marillion songs, particularly the stark brilliance of Splintering Heart, which remains to this day a staple of their tours, often opening shows with a dark grandeur. Therefore, the pressure was on for Marillion to become more commercial although the band were largely more interested in writing more ambitious pieces than three-minute radio hits. it did not spawn any great singles success which would have helped it ‘cross over’ from the niche rock market, as ‘ Kayleigh’ had so memorably done in the mid-80’s. ‘ Seasons End’ was relatively successful, but crucially for E.M.I. ![]() ![]() had high expectations of the band after Steve Hogarth’s debut album with the band in 1989. This was a release for which their record company E.M.I. ![]() ‘Holidays in Eden’, first released in 1991, is the latest edition in Marillion’s series of deluxe re-releases. ![]()
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