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After the relatively weak predeccessor, Marillion figured it was time to go back to their roots and make a more progressive rock oriented album again. Brave is a concept album, based on something Steve Hogarth heard on the radio about a girl who were taken into police custody after she had been wandering the Severn Bridge. She did not know who she was, where she came from and refused to even speak. This inspired Steve to write a story about this girl which included terrible things happening to her.
The band relocated to Marouatte castle in France for the duration of the recording of Brave. This can be heard throughout the album by a lot of haunting sounds and they even went into a cave which lay in the nearby area and taped some cave sounds which were used as atmospheric background noise on the album. As engineer, they got Dave Meegan whom had previously worked with Marillion on Fugazi. As for EMI, they really wanted the band to do a "quick record" to gain some revenue, but this project would escalate and escalate. It took the band nine months to write and produce this album, partly because of Dave whom would go through every single new tape made every day each night listening for any riff or melody which sounded good enough to be included in the songs. This hard and tedious work paid off in the end.
This album is widely regarded by most fans to be one of Marillion's best albums with Steve Hogarth as frontman. It was, however, no public hit due to EMI's lack of promotion and the fact that it had no real single potential. This was a concept piece after all, but still some singles were eventually released. These include Alone Again In The Lap Of Luxury, The Hollow Man and The Great Escape.
In the liner notes of this record, it is promptly stated:
"Play it loud with the lights off."
Track List - Bridge (2:52)
- Living With The Big Lie (6:46)
- Runaway (4:40)
- Goodbye To All That (12:26)
- Hard As Love (6:41)
- The Hollow Man (4:08)
- Alone Again In The Lap Of Luxury (8:13)
- Paper Lies (5:49)
- Brave (7:54)
- The Great Escape (6:29)
- Made Again (5:02)
The 1999 remaster has the following additional tracks on the second CD: - The Great Escape (Orchestral)
- Marouatte Jam
- The Hollow Man (Acoustic)
- Winter Trees
- Alone Again In The Lap Of Luxury (Acoustic)
- Runaway (Acoustic)
- Hard As Love (Instrumental)
- Living With The Big Lie (Demo)
- Alone Again In The Lap Of Luxury (Demo)
- Dream Sequence (Demo)
- The Great Escape (Spiral Remake)
External links Comments by some of the band members (on the marillion.com (http://www.marillion.com) band page): - Steve Hogarth (http://www.marillion.com/band/hogarth/brave.html)
- Steve Rothery (http://www.marillion.com/band/rothery/brave.html)
- Pete Trewavas (http://www.marillion.com/band/trewavas/brave.html)
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