Marillion’s 2012 album pairs long, ambitious epics with tighter, hook-led songs, and its willingness to tackle serious real-world subjects sets it apart in the Hogarth era’s later run.

The short version

Released in 2012, ‘Sounds That Can’t Be Made’ is one of Marillion’s most expansive later records. Steve Hogarth sings lead, with Steve Rothery on guitar, Mark Kelly on keyboards, Pete Trewavas on bass, and Ian Mosley on drums — the same five-piece that has held firm since 1989. The album ranges from a seventeen-minute opener and a fourteen-minute travelogue to compact, melodic songs, and it reaches beyond the personal into social and humanitarian territory. Blogcritics judged that the band sounds as good as they ever have and called the record a big step in the right direction. For listeners who like their prog ambitious but still tuneful, it is among the strongest starting points in the band’s twenty-first-century catalogue.

Reaching Beyond the Personal

By 2012 the Hogarth-era line-up — Steve Hogarth singing, with Steve Rothery, Mark Kelly, Pete Trewavas, and Ian Mosley — had settled into a way of working built on long studio exploration. ‘Sounds That Can’t Be Made’ grew out of that freedom. Alongside more personal, reflective songs, the band took on weightier subject matter: the extended opener ‘Gaza’ approaches a humanitarian situation from a civilian point of view, which Hogarth linked to conversations with ordinary people affected by it. The album carries that weight without lecturing, folding it among warmer pieces.

The sound

This is widescreen, emotive neo-prog, music that trusts the slow build and the big emotional payoff. The longer pieces move in patient waves, letting tension gather before Rothery’s guitar or Hogarth’s voice lifts them, while the shorter songs show a sharper, more direct kind of writing. Blogcritics singled out that contrast, praising the tighter songcraft of the compact tracks and noting how good the band sounds when Rothery is given room to soar. Kelly’s keyboards supply colour and depth, Trewavas and Mosley hold a supple, unhurried groove, and Hogarth moves between intimacy and full-throated release. The result feels large without feeling cold — its scale always serves feeling rather than technical display.

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The songs

The title track, ‘Sounds That Can’t Be Made’, is one of the album’s more direct highlights, a soaring mid-length song built on a strong melodic hook. ‘Montreal’ is the great travelogue at the album’s centre, a fourteen-minute piece that drifts through impressions of a place and a journey and gives the band space to move between hush and swell. ‘The Sky Above the Rain’ closes the record on its most tender note, an extended, slow-burning ballad about the strains and endurance of a long relationship. The three capture the album’s balance of scale, warmth, and craft.

Reception and legacy

Critics broadly welcomed the album as a confident, mature statement. Blogcritics wrote that the band sounds as good as they ever have, praised Rothery’s playing and the writing on the shorter songs, and framed the record as a step forward, placing it just below the acclaimed ‘Marbles’. Reviewers repeatedly noted the band’s willingness to reach for difficult subjects without losing their melodic instincts.

The verdict

‘Sounds That Can’t Be Made’ rewards patience and pays back attention. It is a good entry point for anyone curious about how Marillion evolved in the Hogarth years — ambitious in scale, generous in melody, and unafraid to look outward as well as in. Start with the title track and ‘Montreal’ to feel the range, then let the closer work its slow spell. This is not prog built on speed or flash; its strengths are mood, dynamics, and a band at ease with itself.

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