- Vigil
- Big Wedge
- State Of Mind
- The Company
- A Gentleman's Excuse Me
- The Voyeur (I Like To Watch)
- Family Business
- View From The Hill
- Cliché
Reflections in the Firelight
When Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors arrived in 1990, it was more than just Fish’s debut as a solo artist - it was a reckoning. Having parted ways with Marillion, he stood alone before his audience, stripped of the safety of the band dynamic but armed with the same poetic fury that had always set him apart. What emerged was not the sound of a man starting over, but of one confronting the wreckage of what came before and finding something luminous among the ruins.
The title itself - Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors - captures the record’s soul perfectly. It is both a confession and a crusade, a moment of stillness in the glare of distortion. Fish looks out at a world of illusion - political, personal, spiritual - and vows to keep watch, candle in hand, heart unflinching. His lyrics, as ever, are dense with imagery and emotion, written with the precision of a poet and the passion of a man who refuses to surrender to cynicism.
Musically, the album bridges two worlds: the theatrical, conceptual rock of his Marillion past and a grittier, more personal style rooted in the late ’80s landscape of post-prog and social commentary. Yet beneath its grand arrangements and cinematic sweep, there is intimacy - the voice of someone learning how to speak for himself again. Fish’s delivery moves between tenderness and thunder, his humanity always breaking through the production’s gleam.
Vigil is a deeply moral record, but not a preachy one. Its spirituality comes from empathy, its politics from pain. The “wilderness” is both societal and internal - a reflection of a man searching for authenticity in a world of performance. And though the album wrestles with disillusionment, it never succumbs to despair. Instead, it holds onto faith - not in institutions or ideologies, but in art, integrity, and the possibility of renewal.
In Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors, Fish doesn’t rebuild his world - he learns to walk through its reflections. The result is an album that burns with conviction, compassion, and the kind of clarity that only comes after the storm.
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My personal view:
Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors is the debut solo album by Scottish neo-progressive rock singer Fish, who had been the lead singer of Marillion until 1988. And what an amazing debut it is, with a vibe very similar to the best Marillion albums. The outstanding tracks Vigil and A Gentleman's Excuse Me are actually in my opinion better songs than anything he ever did with Marillion, aside from Kayleigh. Other highlights include Big Wedge, The Company, and Cliché. It is still the highlight of his solo career for me.