Alex,

Marillion used to be one of my very favourite bands when they first started with Fish on vocals.Of that era all the albums are worth checking out but I still have a soft spot for 'Script for a jester's tear' and 'Fugazi'. Fish's bedsit suicide lyrics were quite different from new vocalist Steve Hogarth's.

Of his era I personally rate 'Afraid of sunlight' and 'This strange engine' highest but I expect you'll find a lot of people voting for 'Brave', the concept album.

Really you have to treat them as two different bands coz although there are definate similarities, at times the 'new' Marillion are a lot more progressive in the literal sense of the word as opposed to regressive as the original band was in it's Genesis appreciation. (Does that make sense?) Either way there's a lot of good music amongst those albums but they seem to be playing smaller and smaller venues here in the UK while their credibility seems to be increasing with the rock media.

Personally I didn't rate 'Radiation' or 'Marillion.com