REVIEW: Fish, Raingods With Zippos (Roadrunner)
- Dan Birchall
Fresh on the heels of the Kettle of Fish compilation celebrating the first decade of his solo career, former Marillion frontman Fish has returned with "Raingods With Zippos," featuring diverse songs that let him make good use of the vocal range fans love.
The album begins with "Tumbledown," sandwiching a driving rock song between opening and closing piano solos. "Mission Statement" rocks just as hard and features great lyrics, aiming to make the world a better place - even if it means not getting some work done. Fish duets with Elisabeth Antwi on "Incomplete," a very pretty song about lost love.
"Tilted Cross" features slightly more cryptic lyrics, but is every bit as pretty musically. "Faith Healer" is harder, with a fairly straightforward subject, and music that would have fit easily into Queensryche's "Rage for Order" in 1986. The individual songs draw to a close with another slow song of lost love, "Rites of Passage" - but the album's not over yet.
Like many progressive artists, Fish has a penchant for the occasional multi-song conceptual work. In this case, the second half of the album consists of "Plague of Ghosts," a twenty-five minute piece in six parts about love, loss and rebirth. Spanning the musical spectrum from ambient sound and spoken word to up-tempo pop, this should leave no doubt that Fish still has as much talent as ever.
