Marbles

Hogarth tied the title to a childhood story of marbles he and a friend lost by hitting them into the sky with tennis rackets, and to losing your marbles in later life. Escape, he said, runs through it. All lyrics are his. Dave Meegan produced it, his second Marillion album in a row, and Ocean Cloud is dedicated to the ocean rower Don Allum. The band paid for the recording, and pre-orders of a Deluxe Campaign Edition, whose hardbound book printed the names of the pre-orderers, paid for the publicity.

It came out on 27 April 2004 to pre-orderers and on 3 May in shops, as a double CD and a shorter single CD, both closing with Neverland. It sold enough for the British top 30 but was ruled ineligible because it came with stickers. You're Gone reached seven and Don't Hurt Yourself sixteen. Jon Hotten in Classic Rock called it one of their very best records, and Prog ranked it 53rd among the top 100 progressive albums.