Brave

In the mid-1980s Hogarth heard a police appeal on local radio for a teenage girl found wandering alone on the Severn Bridge. He kept a note of it for years. When the band had written Living with the Big Lie and Runaway, he told them the story and suggested linking the songs into a fictional tale.

Dave Meegan produced, having worked on Fugazi as an assistant engineer. EMI wanted a quick record, but it took nine months. It was written at the Racket Club between April 1992 and January 1993 and recorded between February and September 1993. The band spent three months at Marouatte Castle in France, where they recorded cave sounds for ambience, then four months at Parr Street in Liverpool. It was mixed at Sarm West in London. Tony Halligan played Uilleann pipes, and the Liverpool Philharmonic supplied cellos and flute. John Helmer shared the lyrics on Runaway, Hard as Love, Paper Lies and The Great Escape, and wrote those of Made Again.

The double vinyl has a double groove on its last side, giving two endings: The Great Escape into Made Again, or a Spiral Remake followed by water noise. Richard Stanley directed a 50-minute film in 1995 that takes the darker ending. The Hollow Man reached 30 and the album ten, the last to reach the top ten until F E A R reached four in 2016. The Brave World Tour began at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool on 20 February 1994 and played the album start to finish. Hogarth said in 2018 that the band lost a lot of fans on Brave. Raw ranked it one of the 20 greatest albums of 1994, and Prog placed it 29th among its top 100 prog albums.