Trollheart

Yeah I would agree. Without doubt, Marillion took a lot of influence from Genesis, and Fish from Gabriel, but if anything I feel he was more a student of Peter Hammill than Gabriel; the latter tends, as you pointed out, mostly to croon and sing relatively softly (so much so that when he spits and growls on tracks like "The Knife" and a little in "Stagnation" it comes as something of a shock) whereas Hammill could go from angelic choirboy to raving devil in an instant, and back. He could be completely sane and then go off on a madman's rant, and return to normality as if nothing had happened.

The music itself drew much from Genesis, but it's very different. Look at the debut: the first song is a lament for a lost love, the second a sharp indictment of drug addiction, the third a retreat from life itself. Follow that up with one satirical upbeat song about the "posh folk", then right back down into one about unfulfilled dreams and suicide, and end with a rage against the Troubles in Northern Ireland, seen from a British perspective (duh) - doesn't sound like any Genesis I know.

If any neo-prog band ripped off Genesis I'd say it's Pendragon. I mean, I love the guys to death but they literally took sections of "Firth of Fifth" and I think "Cinema Show" and shamelessly used them in their songs. They also ripped off Supertramp and Floyd, but that's another matter.

I think the problem with Marillion is that they were always going to be compared to Genesis, being one of the first bands to bring back prog into the mainstream, and one of the best known and biggest survivors of a trend which left a lot of bodies in its wake. A lot of people could not see past the Genesis tag, but I think it does them a disservice. Genesis were always more esoteric in their lyrical matter; Marillion went full-on into politics, human relations and controversial subjects. Marillion were definitely not the 80s version of 70s Genesis, not by a long way.

You can read more of my rantings about Marillion
here

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Queen Boo

Gabriel's lyrics with Genesis dealt with sociopolitical issues a little bit like slumlords with Get 'Em Out by Friday and globalization with Dancing With the Moonlit Knight but in his own cheeky way, when the 80s came around his political commentary became a lot more straightforward.

Fish's approach as both a lyricist and a vocalist is more emotional and direct, just like Hammilll's, I agree that's a much more fitting comparison.

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Guybrush

Hey, you leave my personal beef with Marillion alone! I don't wanna listen to Jester's Tear now just to see if my 15 year old impressions still hold true.

.. I'll concede I may not know at all what I'm talking about.

.. Okay, maybe I'll give it a re-spin one of these days and then I can get embarassed all over again by how much they sound like a Genesis tribute band.

Boo, to your point that the first wave prog spirit lived on in bands like Ween and Mr. Bungle, yes - I agree. For myself, I prefer to think of myself as someone who likes a bit of avantgarde music rather than a proghead these days. The ethos of challenging the musical art form and finding a sound that's unique is what I love about early prog, but it also happens in so many bands and artists outside the scope of what most people think of as prog.

This is part why I like Aksak Maboul's new direction, even if my prog friends do not. A lot of prog bands and artists are looking backwards and being nostalgic. AM had a very diverse sound back then and have also reinvented their sound into something that I find pleasingly original (even if their latest album Figures is a little more retrospective than Ex Futur).

I know it's probably unwarranted, but like a fanboi, I'll post my two favourite tracks from their latest two albums:

From Ex-Futur




From Figures

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robhr

Here’s some of my favourites, they’re kinda on the line between indie and progressive, but Last.fm seems to think they’re prog so here you go…

Oceansize
Aereogramme
Clann Zú
Paatos
Iamthemorning

LawryPopson

Thank you for sharing those. They are unfortunately still a bit too popular to my playlist. Although I understand that in the big picture they are pretty unknown.
Paatos is a finnish word so for a moment I thought that the band would be also from Finland, but it was from Sweden which is quite close too. Maybe they have taken that word from Finland.
It means kinda like powerful/passionate speech so it at least would fit the name of a rock band.

Anyway thank you for sharing those. Maybe I'll listen them more even they don't come to my playlist.

Frownland

PinioL

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robhr

Oh okay.

Edit: Actually I’m gonna edit this out, not sure I’m allowed to plug a friend’s music.

Trollheart

How about a band who took their name from a type of potato, maybe?

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Guybrush

There are quite a few old Norwegian prog bands unknown to most of the world, like Kerrs Pink, Junipher Greene, Aunt Mary, Popol Vuh/Ace, Høst, etc.

But while they have the occasional moments of goodness, I don't think they feel very inspired comparatively to what went on in England - or in neighbouring Sweden for that matter.

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LawryPopson

Yeah there's actually one song from Kerrs Pink on my playlist, "Hvis Jeg Er Der Neste Ar - If I'm Still Here Next Year".
At the moment, though, I’m looking a bit newer music. The reason for that is that I'm trying to have music on the playlist from the bands that are currently active. The goal would be that they would also get a little boost for being on the playlist.
Of course at the moment there are only 86 followers, but I think that is better than nothing for totally unknown bands.
Thank you anyway for sharing those. I keep them in my mind for the future.