This review covers the rock track Marillion – The Great Escape.
This track was released in 1994 on the album Brave.
The track starts with vocals with a delay effect. A piano then comes in. From there, the guitars come in and the track increases in overall volume. The track then drops out after, leaving only high hats and the piano.
From there, the vocals then come in. Several elements return as an instrumental section continues. After that, the vocals then come in again. A guitar solo then comes in.
In the next section has the vocals coming back in. Several elements then drop out, leaving only the piano. A violin comes in. A flute also makes an appearance. Other strings then come in. After that, the vocals come in again. From there, another guitar solo then comes in. The vocals make brie appearances in this part. A thunder clap sample is also used. The various elements then drop out gradually.
This is one of those tracks that try to go for that epic sound. It has a lot of the right ideas by integrating rock and orchestral elements. Unfortunately, the track doesn’t quite hit on everything that is needed for an actual epic track.
For one, the lyrics structure, from what I could hear anyway, is basically a series of verses. I couldn’t even hear a main chorus. Another problem is that I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand over half of what the vocals are even saying.
On a more positive note, the guitar work does sound pretty good in this track. Some of the orchestral elements are also well integrated into the track as well.
Overall, this is a track that tries to be an epic track and stumbles on the execution. While I can appreciate the integration of orchestral elements into a rock track, there are issues with this particular track. For one, there isn’t much of a lyrical structure. For another, the vocals are very hard to understand. Picking up some of the slack are the guitars and orchestral elements that manage to keep the track sounding decent. So, a decent all around track, but not without pitfalls.
Score
7/10
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
