Marillion’s second album, Fugazi usually trails a distant last in rankings of the four studio albums they made with original singer Fish. But while it lacks the spiky rush of its predecessor Script For A Jester’s Tear and the bulletproof commerciality of follow-up Misplaced Childhood, Fugazi is better than its reputation would have it.
This four-disc reissue is a chance to revisit it with fresh ears. A new remix makes some welcome changes both large (fleshing out the album’s tinny production) and small (swapping the epic title track’s original anti-climactic fade out for a proper ending). There’s also a 5.1 surround-sound mix – obligatory on any high-profile prog reissue these days.
The gold here for Marillion aficionados comes with the lengthy and illuminating documentary on the Blu-ray disc, detailing the album’s turbulent gestation, plus footage from a stellar appearance on Swiss TV and a recording of a gig at Montreal’s Spectrum Club in June 1984 (a handful of tracks from which appeared on that year’s Real To Reel live album).
It’s the live material that best represents Marillion at this stage in their career – a prog band with a punk band’s energy, something they’d never truly capture again despite all the successes that followed.
