Introduction: Fuck Everyone And Run (F.E.A.R.) is the eighteenth Marillion album, the fourteenth with Steve Hogarth. The album title and promotional artwork was revealed on the 7th April 2016.
The word 'Fuck' is rendered as 'F***', but Lucy Jordache confirmed the correct title of the album is Fuck Everyone And Run.
It was originally planned that FEAR should be released on the 09th September 2016. It was pointed out that 9(th)+9(Sept)=18(th album), however, this was later pushed back to 23rd September 2016.
The album title is taken from a line from New Kings. Paul Harding pointed out it has also appeared in the song Only Love Will Make You Free from the Steve Hogarth/ Richard Barbieri album Not The Weapon But The Hand.
The day after the announcement of the album title, Steve Hogarth posted the following to the PledgeMusic site:
What's in a name?On 07/01/16, the band revealed on their PledgeMusic page the working titles and running times of six tracks as follows;
All worthwhile human impulses come from love. And all negative and destructive human impulses come from fear.
This album is called Fuck Everyone and Run or F.E.A.R.
This title is adopted not in anger or with any intention to shock. It is adopted and sung (in the song New Kings) tenderly, in sadness and resignation inspired by an England, and a world, which increasingly functions on an "Every man for himself" philosophy. I won't bore you with examples, they’re all over the newspapers every day.
There's a sense of foreboding that permeates much of this record. I have a feeling that we're approaching some kind of sea-change in the world – an irreversible political, financial, humanitarian and environmental storm. I hope that I'm wrong. I hope that my FEAR of what 'seems' to be approaching is just that, and not FEAR of what 'is' actually about to happen.
The Leavers - 14m 26s
El Dorado - 12m 18s
Class - 4m 58s
Things Buried - 3m 53s
New Kings - 16m 30s
Melt Our Guns - 5m 20s
Names and times are subject to change. It was also stated that there were other ideas that might end up on the album.
On 26/04/16 during an appearance on the Brazilian TV programme Todo Seu, h described the album as, "Another very different record to anything we've really done before. It's five songs, I think. Maybe only four - we're still trying to finish the fifth one - but they're ten, fifteen minutes long. They're long musical pieces.
"It's an album about a sense of a big change happening in the world, financial, ecological, political, A sense of the feel that everything... that we're on the edge of a wave. Maybe even a storm that's going to break. I hope I'm wrong about that. It's a feeling. It's a feeling of unease that is underneath this record."
On 18/05/16 Mark Kelly tweeted that the band had listened to the album to make notes for any finishing touches prior to the commencement of mixing. He stated,"It took over 70 minutes to play the whole thing and it's only 5 songs... Is that a double album?"
A press release by label earMUSIC on 20/06/16 stated "FEAR sees the band taking on the big themes but they do not see it as their place to preach to people. New Kings looks at the ravening beast that modern capitalism seems to have evolved into, El Dorado examines the notions of political entitlement and the modern challenges for the UK, The Leavers examines the impact of a transient life on the road for those constantly waving goodbye."
On 28/06/16, the full tracklisting was revealed on PledgeMusic as follows. Timings are from iTunes, released on 08/07/16 when the song The New Kings was made available to buy:
1. El Dorado (i) Long-Shadowed Sun (01:26)
2. El Dorado (ii) The Gold (06:12)
3. El Dorado (iii) Demolished Lives (02:23)
4. El Dorado (iv) F E A R (04:07)
5. El Dorado (v) The Grandchildren of Apes (02:35)
6. Living in F E A R (06:25)
7. The Leavers (i) Wake Up in Music (04:27)
8. The Leavers (ii) The Remainers (01:34)
9. The Leavers (iii) Vapour Trails in the Sky (04:49)
10. The Leavers (iv) The Jumble of Days (04:20)
11. The Leavers (v) One Tonight (03:56)
12. White Paper (07:18)
13. The New Kings (i) Fuck Everyone and Run (04:22)
14. The New Kings (ii) Russia’s Locked Doors (06:24)
15. The New Kings (iii) A Scary Sky (02:33)
16. The New Kings (iv) Why Is Nothing Ever True? (03:24)
17. The Leavers (vi) Tomorrow’s New Country (01:47)
Lucy Jordache confirmed there were only five tracks on the album as follows:
El Dorado (16:43)
Living In FEAR (06:25)
The Leavers (20:53)
White Paper (07:18)
The New Kings (16:43)
She also confirmed that The Leavers was not about the EU referendum!
Upon release of the album, it became clear that The Leavers (vi) Tomorrow’s New Country was a distinct 6th track to the album.
Cover notes: The cover artwork released in April 2016, designed by Simon Ward, features the acronym FEAR rendered in the style of hallmarks upon a gold background. The cover is entirely computer-generated.
The band's name does not appear on the album cover.
The gold is likely to be a reference to El Dorado, who was a mythical tribal chief from what is now Colombia, and who supposedly covered himself in gold dust which he then washed off in a lake while his tribe threw gold trinkets into the water. Over time, the word has come to mean a lost city filled with gold.
Hallmarks are marks struck upon precious metals by an independent body in order to provide guarantees about the quality of said metal. Most of the hallmarks on FEAR do not correspond to genuine hallmarks as listed by the Assay Office, however, Tony Furminger in the comments below noted that 'r' is the hallmark for 2016, the year of the album's release.
The hallmark for the 'A' also contains the number 18 and the letter 'U' in a much smaller typeface. 'Au' is the chemical symbol for gold, another reference to El Dorado. 18 refers both to the fact that the album is their 18th studio album, and also to the idea of 18 carat gold.
The hallmark for the 'R' also contains the letters 'UN' in a much smaller type face, making it read 'RUN'. Lucy Jordache confirmed this is a reference to the United Nations.
Under the relevant letter is each of the words of the title; F*** Everyone And Run.
Song Listing:
Songs with a link have explanations.
R is also the Hallmark for 2016, the year the album will be released
ReplyDeleteIf you give me your name, I can credit you for that!
DeleteWondering if that is a blurred out image of the band as the reflection.
ReplyDeleteWow! Can it be that Marillion is going to release an album that might have some real bite and even offend some people? I hope so; it's been a long time (even Gaza involved some fence sitting, although that's understandable from a life expectancy point of view :-)).
ReplyDelete"A sometime Marillion fan".
I love the cover at last some originality shown here. No boring, bland, sheepish, cover art. But a cover with smart original, and in my mind clever, with a refreshing hint of brains. Makes for a clever cover art. hopefully some other bands might want to take note. You have a brain and if you think hard enough you can be original and clever. and not run with the rest of the sheep.
ReplyDeleteBefore you disappear up your own arse in neo-artistic nirvana subliminals, bands are about music & lyrics first, foremost and last. It's a cover, get over it, under it or on it. Who gives a shit. Play the bloody record.
DeleteWell, not everyone shares that opinion, and I'm not really sure why you should feel so strongly if other people should be interested in the artwork. If you want to ignore it, fine, but why bother to comment on what other people are interested in? Seems a bit OTT to me.
DeleteBang on, Slaphead. That comment strikes me as particularly odd as we're talking about a band that has always had a strong visual identity. In the Fish years, Mark Wilkinson was like a sixth band member.
ReplyDeleteI have heard the album and seen them perform at the London Palladium. Brilliant show and a very thought provoking album. This is my first Marillion album although I do have six singles from the dilly dilly years. would recommend earphones on and listen. But its your choice, I aint telling you what to do.
ReplyDeleteIt's now November 2020 and it seems like Steve Hogarth's foreboding is coming true and a frightening new world order is materialising before our very eyes!
ReplyDeleteIf you imagine that Steve Hogarth would prefer Trump over Biden I’m afraid you’ve really badly misunderstood the FEAR album.
DeleteI respect to recent actions of Bidens F.E.A.R policy I wouldn't presume that Hogarth would be preferable to either. Also the foreboding of this album has encapsulated everything the world's horrendous events have seen in the ensuing years. Hope you were all suitably masked. I just pray there is more hope and less death in the album20.
DeleteThe references to polonium, oligarchs with ties to Russia and the shooting down of MH17 sound even spookier nowadays.
ReplyDeleteOn a lighter note, do we know what became of "Class" and "Things Buried"? Did either of them morph into "White Paper" or end up as a section of "The Leavers" or "El Dorado"?