MARILLION: SEASONS END DELUXE REISSUE
Expanded version of Steve Hogarth’s 1989 debut with the band due out this May.
Thirty four years after it originally came out, Seasons End is the latest, and final, entry in the series of expanded reissues of Marillion’s EMI-era albums. Set for release on May 19, it features a brand-new remix of the original studio album and a recording of their set at
Leicester de Montfort Hall, as part of the 2022 Marillion Weekend, which saw them playing Seasons End in full.
Guitarist Steve Rothery has nothing but good memories of recording the band’s fifth album in 1989, which was their first following the departure of former singer Fish.
“It’s an album of which I’m incredibly proud,” he tells Prog. “A lot of people had written the band off after Fish left, so to be able to come back with such a strong album was a great feeling of satisfaction. We were at Hook End Manor [in Oxfordshire], the sun was shining – how good does life get?”
The CD/DVD edition also includes a Blu-ray featuring demos, bonus tracks, stereo and 5.1 mixes of the album, videos plus a documentary, as well as a ‘bootleg’ mix of two gigs at Montreal’s Le Spectrum Club in February 1990.
“That tour is still fresh in my mind because it was the first with Steve [Hogarth],” Rothery says, “and there was a sense that it was a rebirth for us. And Le Spectrum has always been a fantastic gig for us, going back to 1984 and the Real To Reel live album.”
As with previous reissues in the series, the remixes have been handled by longtime Marillion producer Michael Hunter. “He knows our music better than we do,” says Rothery. “Every day we’re in the studio rehearsing or doing other stuff, he’s in there mixing some live thing or DVD release. I don’t know how he does it without going insane.”
The band have a busy few months ahead of them, with a series of Marillion Weekends lined up in Holland, Italy, Canada, Germany and the UK, the latter on May 27 in Leicester. Rothery himself has a solo UK date on June 9 at Manchester’s Band On The Wall before kicking off a European tour in September. He’s also working on three albums away from Marillion, one with Tangerine Dream’s Thorsten Quaeschning (the pair are due to perform the Marillion Weekend in Germany in June), plus Revontulet, his own space-themed solo album. “It’s good to keep busy,” he says.
See www.marillion.com for more information and pre-orders.
“We were at Hook End Manor, the sun was shining. How good does life get?”