You simply don't get that marriage of atmospheric instrumental with emotionally strained lyrics anywhere else in the music business in the same way as Marillion it's songs like that that really make the album as incredible as it is. It's all about the sinister nature of these songs, and Hogarth's vocal and lyrics with the repeated 'Say goodbye' just before Steve Rothery's incredible guitar solo make for a case in point as to what the band are all about. Seasons End as a song is quintessential Marillion, not least thanks to its eight minute length. whilst the original lyrics and melody were for the lost fifth Marillion album with Fish, the guitar solo went to good use on Warm Wet Circles on Clutching At Straws. Even then, that particular demo was divvied up into another piece. The album's title track follows, borrowing its melody from Marillion's Beaujolais Day. It's an absolutely fabulous track and one that I've loved for several years and really is one of Season's End's proper standouts. Hogarth also called the track a bit of light relief by comparison to some of the album's darker moments where they could 'inject a note of humour'. As an aside, the original idea with Fish was that the lyrics for his solo hit Lucky would have been paired with the music of The Uninvited Guest - a rather interesting combination to say the least. As with a lot of the work of Hogarth and Helmer, the ideas for lyrics and some of their references came from classic literature and religion, and the idea for The Uninvited Guest stemmed from Edgar Allan Poe's Mask Of The Red Death where 'Death' would dress up as an unwanted intruder in a red cape and take the life of friends of a rich prince in the form of the plague. There's been a couple of ways that the band and Helmer have discussed its topic, with them relating to both AIDS with The Uninvited Guest simply being a metaphor for a virus that nobody wants, not least one that would take the life of eminent musicians such as Freddie Mercury a couple of years after Seasons End's release. As much as the song literally suggests an unwanted intruder, it's about exactly that. First and foremost it's one of Seasons End's best offerings bar none, carrying on with Marillion's signature darkness, both in terms of music and lyrics. The Uninvited Guest that follows has a rather interesting story. As H himself wrote in a memo to The Web fanclub in the Spring 1989 issue, 'After such a long wait for the next Marillion album you deserve something special.' - Easter really is something special. Right from the get-go, he'd make his mark on the band in an incredible way. Anyways, Easter is as brilliant as Hogarth-era Marillion gets with its soaring guitar riffs, pleasant and powerful vocal and marvellous instrumentation. Moreover, both This Town and Dry Land, two staples of the Holidays In Eden record have come from that much under-appreciated followup effort with Colin Woore. Others included Cover My Eyes (Pain And Heaven) which had originally been on How We Live's Dry Land album that I've discussed before in a track entitled Simon's Car. Over the course of the first three Hogarth-era albums, Seasons End, Holidays In Eden and the fantastic Brave, Hogarth-penned compositions from years gone by would be demoed and reworked for the rest of the band, the most famous of which is Easter. This mixture of Fish and Steve Hogarth is nicely contrasted by the now fan-favourite Easter, a track which Ian Mosley recalled as the first thing of Hogarth's that the band took on to record. However, following the horrible events of Tiananmen Square that year, the lyrics were rewritten and made it onto Seasons End. John Helmer's original lyric concerned poverty in Britain and events over history through the yes of a 'wanderer'. The story goes that the song had been demoed at H's audition in Pete Trewavas' garage with Hogarth adding his own lyrics to the band's already-composed backing. There's elements even of Hogarth's former band How We Live creeping in, but instead of being backed by just Colin Woore, it's the whole of Marillion that help to bring Hogarth's lyrics alive. It sticks with the traditional brooding atmosphere that had come to characterise the Fish-era albums from 1982 onwards but soon transitions into the lighter sound that Hogarth's tenure has been marked by for the last thirty years.

As introductions to a new incarnation of a much-loved band go, there's little better than The King Of Sunset Town. For instance, The King Of Sunset Town that opens this album borrows some of its melody from the Fish-era demo Sunset Hill but its lyrics are all penned by both Steve Hogarth and John Helmer, who the band had roped in to help fill the Fish-shaped hole that had been opened in 1988.

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