Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Actually - 11 stars - since doubling the 5 isn't enough, August 14, 2004
If you want to get full enjoyment out of this CD, then do what the band suggests in the liner notes, "Play it loud with the lights off", however, I suggest that you also wear headphones, as there are many very quiet moments that might escape your ears if you don't. Like the opening line, "A Bridge is not a high place..." uttered by the girl before the fog horns start blowing. This whole CD is an entire experience, and you have to listen to it that way. There's no skipping songs or just listening to the first couple of songs and then shutting it off. It is the rarest of concept albums, the one that follows its concept from beginning to end. A lot of people felt it was too emotional, too dark and creepy, to listen to someone's life play out from one bad moment to the next, right from birth to the moment she jumps off the bridge and beyond. Well, Marillion shed their pop sound of Holidays In Eden sure enough on this outing. Not to say that Holidays In Eden is a bad CD, on the contrary, but the tone is completely different on this album. It's able to hold my interest from moment to moment, as the music is so dynamic, soft and slow one moment and loud as hell and frantic the next. H's lyrics and singing are fantastic here. He certainly came of age on this album, leaving Holidays and Season's End in the dust. I don't think I can say enough nice things about this CD. One thing you'll want to do if you aren't sure what to expect upon first listening, is to listen all the way through without anything going on in the background, at a time when it's just you and the music, and use those headphones, as, like I said, there are many little bits you'll miss otherwise, and make sure you have a hanky or a box of tissues, 'cause if you don't cry at the end, you're either a Vulcan or an android. The emotion of these songs is intense, to say the least. Another item you might like to check out is the DVD of their performance of Brave in its entirety at a band convention a few years back. H's stage presence and performance is inspired. It can be found online at Marillion dot com or on ebay. You can also find the album done live on their Made Again CD. I hope it does for you what it has for me. Marillion is that band that most everyone either gets or doesn't, and if you get this CD, you'll more than likely get Marillion. What other band can actually ask their fans to buy their next CD before it's been recorded?! This band's done it twice now, and the two releases have been great, so if you know of another band that has a fan base that rabid for the next CD to buy it before it's recorded, then I'd like to know about them. If you're a music lover, do yourself a favor and at least listen to anything recorded by anyone associated with this band. You'll enjoy yourself very much.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the few albums that make me cry ALWAYS, February 24, 2003
"Brave" means to Marillion what "The Wall" means to Pink Floyd. That is, a beautiful concept-album based on a whole story. In that case, a strange case of a runaway girl found in a bridge by the police. The whole record is a kind of "flashback" in which we recostruct her history and the reasons that lead her to that strange end.
Just for the record, the concept is inspired by a REAL story that happened in England; it seems to be that the police found a girl on a bridge and she was in a kind of shock so she couldn't remember anything:
(" When they ask her name/Would she please explain/She simply chooses to say nothing "-Bridge)
We have to remember as well that Marillion already had a fantastic concept album,"Misplaced childhood" and "Clutching at straws"(altough isn't really a concept album it has its "spirit")
In the first "real" song, "Living with the big lie", we find out how sick of the world our heroin is.It has some great lines,and despite Steve Hogarth is not Fish in terms of lyric-writing, he can sing twice as good as the scotsman.
In "runaway" we also know she is escaping from a broken home,and besides the pride,she is running away because of his father was molesting her.She have a quite tough and dark reality,living in misery.It seems that she is losing the sense of reality, and desperately trying to seek for some peace of mind.
In "HArd as love", one of the rare hard-rocking moments of the album (it's a relaxing album indeed),she is saying that her heart is closed so you can't reach into.She seems very hurt.
One of my favorite songs of the album,and by the way,one of the most memorable Marillion-songs,is "Alone again...".I have to really fight back the tears when the guitar melody appears.It is a beautiful sad song!She remembers how miserable was her former life,and that she won't forget what they did to her.She feels ok to be away,but is far from being happy ("I don't remember the last time I cried/I don't remember much except lies")
"Paper lies" is perhaps the weakest moment of the album(the second "rock"song of it).It seems that media want to take profit of her pain,publishing some sensationalist news.
Finally, in the last songs, it looks like she is trying to commit suicide (it's not clear for me) but something or someone release her("And it's all because you made me see/What is false and what is true/Like the inside and the outside of me/Is being made again by you"-Made again).By the way,another perfect song.
In conclusion, this is a beautiful album,all its songs are perfectly placed and the action runs smoothly.All the band was really inspired while doing this; they even hired a studio placed in a castle to get in the melancholic mood.You can notice how good team they are.This record and "Grace" by Jeff Buckley are sadness turned into music.
I have a wise advice for you:Don't touch this album unless you are in the appropiated mood.Its darkness can really hurt you and bring you down almost instantantly.The very beginning,with the boat sound and some mellow music starting in,is one of the best starters I've ever listened to.And the end,with "Falling from the moon" and "made again",a perfect way of closing.I ALWAYS cry whenever I listen to the former.The voice of Hogarth and the guitar arpeggios put me in a depresive groove.But sometimes is good to cry,don't you think so?
Thanks for your patience and buy this record now,you will return again and again to this dreamy and sad world depicted in "Brave"
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Marillion's Most Emotional Journey!, September 20, 2002
This album is a musical work of art, undoutably the most emotional music Marillion (or any other artist for that matter) has ever produced. 80 amazing minutes of vivid and diversly haunting yet aslo rocking music which takes the listerner on a journey in and around the mind of an emotionally fragile woman who begins a mental downward spiral from her birth to her death. The whole time, you never really know if she is suffering the physical and emotional abuses that have scarred her or whether she is just metally imbalanced, causing her to have horrible flashbacks that may never have taken place, her life story is a tear jerker. Marillion have stretched the music boundries here on 'Brave' but the real magic comes from the vocal delivery of singer / songwriter Steve Hogarth. His lyrics and voice reach into the human spirit, into the sensitive core of your heart, creating an involuntary compassion for the poor woman who's life this story follows. Without being pretentious in anyway, Marillion manage to keep the listerners attention for the entirety of this 80 minute album. There are no albums that I would give 5 stars to but 'Brave' took me to places no other album has. For the old school Marillion fan of the 80's (Fish period) there is virtually no connection on 'Brave' to their prog-rock past. Being a fan of both periods, I have to admit that Marillion still mess with time signitures but now write songs that would be recieved very well by the general masses if they were just given airplay. Maybe that is their salvation! More like Radiohead or Massive Attack, Marillion's sound is very current yet totally original in style and influence. 'Brave' is a masterpiece of music which I strongly recommended!
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