Viewed with hindsight, Fish didn’t have a solo career so much as an endless stream of label struggles, lawsuits, near-bankruptcies, heartbreak, divorce(s), hospitalisations and near-death experiences, punctuated by the odd album.
That the [almost]-retired singer didn’t chuck in the towel and move to the Outer Hebrides years ago is testament to his stubbornness. Either that or he was the world’s biggest glutton for punishment.
These reissues of his first two post-Marillion albums are where the joy and the pain started – and fittingly, as the last- ever releases on his Chocolate Frog label, where they end too. The deluxe CD editions of both are expertly remixed by Calum Malcolm and housed in handsome thick card boxes.
They come with extensive sleeve notes by Fish himself, recalling with a mix of humour and exasperation the changing forecast for his career – optimism rising in the east, with a hurricane of absolute shit rapidly approaching from the west.
The signs were all there early on with 1990’s Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors when his label, EMI, insisted he delay it so his old band could release their own new album first. Any political machinations didn’t impact on the music.
Most interesting in each case are the demo CDs, wherein several songs appear in earlier, more intriguing forms
Vigil remains the best thing to bear his name as a solo artist, viciously defiant in its taking down of government (Vigil, State Of Mind), capitalist greed (Big Wedge) and former friends turned enemies (The Company, View From A Hill). But there’s tenderness on the delicate A Gentleman’s Excuse Me and Cliché.
Internal Exile, from 1991, found the singer moving to Polydor, only to enter a new arena of pain. It’s a bumpier record – electrifying on Shadowplay, Credo and the musically jaunty, lyrically seething title track; less so on the dreary Favourite Stranger or the godawful, Madchester-inspired cover of Thunderclap Newman’s Something In The Air. Why the brilliant Poet’s Moon didn’t make the original tracklisting is anyone’s guess; it’s rightly included in the thick of it here.
The deluxe versions include a bumper batch of bonus discs – three extra CDs and a Blu-ray apiece. Most interesting in each case are the demo CDs, wherein several songs appear in earlier, more intriguing forms: the blaring horns on Big Wedge replaced by blazing guitars, for instance; or Dear Friends taking shape as a supper-club jazz vamp.
The remaining discs are packed with live material from the old Battleside and Dick Bros archives, some of it long out of print. Casual fans are unlikely to need six live versions of Vigil or Credo, but diehard Fishheads won’t complain.
Anyway, after 30-odd years of near-constant arseache, who’d begrudge him the right to do whatever the hell he wanted?
Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors and Internal Exile are available in multiple formats via Chocolate Frog.
