You know the kind of album one holds so dear he dares not criticize it. It doesn't mean it's the greatest thing in the whole wide world, just a foundation, a major step towards developing a taste. Marillion’s Script for a Jester's Tear is just that for me. At the time I first heard it, I was solely into heavy metal and loathed anything featuring synthesizers (like many of my peers back in the days). Just to make things perfectly clear and realize how far we've gone since then, it was a time when Jon Lord was the undisputed champion of the keyboards category in about every metal magazine around the world.

So… We’re in 1984 and a young metalhead gets a surprising birthday gift. It’s nothing like the Iron Maidens, Metallicas, Venoms, Judas Priests (etc.) he then enjoyed headbanging and singing along to. It’s comprised of six long songs loaded with keyboards, time changes, poetic lyrics, clean guitars… Not much to chew on for one so unprepared, yet, there’s something, a little je-ne-sais-quoi (and a relative lack of new music in his “library”) which pushes him to try and try and try again despite his initial reservations (which were many, by all counts). Of course, there are elements to grab his attention, terrific lead guitars, great melodies, the gut feeling that it’s going to “click” to, and it did.

Now I know that Marillion were basically rehashing old recipes with 80s aesthetics and production. Now I know of Genesis, Pink Floyd, Camel, Yes, Jethro Tull, all obvious influences to a then up and coming London progressive rock band. Actually, they will develop the 80s side of things even further on Script for a Jester’s Tear’s sequel, Fugazi, with great results. We’re not there yet on what essentially feels like revivalism, and the album has its flaws such as a drummer (Mick Pointer, which will soon be let go only to resurface, a few years later, in Clive Nolan’s Arena) that didn’t exactly ruin the music but was recognized as the weakest link that he was and logically dealt with accordingly. The other weight on the band’s shoulders has been, as you might already know, a comparison with Genesis which, while making sense, was nothing but a dire imprecision, a far too easy shortcut. Yes, Fish, a charismatic frontman and somewhat cryptic lyricist, used the same kind of effects than Peter Gabriel used to, the same post-teenage dramatization of his art on stage aka make-up, masks, costumes which actually fitted Marillion’s will to appear almost magical, otherworldly and went along nicely with a music already possessing the theatricality every progressive rock band should display. That said, vocally, with influences ranging from Alex Harvey to David Bowie and Peter Hammill (Van der Graaf Generator), on top of the aforementioned, Derek (his Christian name) already manages to establish his own persona, his very personal and emotional inner-world beautifully laid on the page and sang with passion. Also, the band’s music, way simpler than Genesis ever was in his glorious progressive era, leans closer to Camel with hints of Pink Floyd (Steve Rothery's Gilmour influenced lead parts are exemplary of it) which makes for a good combination to which the singer’s brings the little extra that will eventually lead Marillion to be considered, with good reason, as the natural leader of the new British progressive surge known as Neo-Prog (Pendragon, Twelfth Night, IQ, Pallas, etc.).

In the end, with no sign of weakening throughout its 47 minutes (even if I have to admit He Knows You Know and Garden Party are hardly favorites of mine now), Script for a Jester's Tear is a terrific progressive rock album held, 29 years after its release, to the status of classic album. A claim even more valid in its remastered version which features roborant bonuses such as fans’ favorite epic 19 minutes tune Grendel and its EP companions (Three Boats Down from the Candy, Market Square Heroes).