This Strange Engine is the ninth studio album by the British neo-prog band Marillion, released in April 1997 by the Castle Communications imprint Raw Power. It was the first of the three recordings that Marillion made under contract with Castle, after being dropped by EMI Records in 1995 and before eventually going independent in 2000. The album was recorded at The Racket Club in Buckinghamshire, England, between August and November 1996 and was produced by the band themselves.
Background
Without promotional efforts of a major record label, This Strange Engine continued the decline in mainstream success for Marillion, reaching only number 27 in the UK Albums Chart and staying there for three weeks.
A remix of the album, Tales from the Engine Room, conducted by the electronic music project Positive Light, was first released as a limited edition January 1998 on Racket Records, and in June 1998 it was released worldwide by Eagle Records.
Track listing
Personnel
Marillion
- Steve Hogarth – vocals, backing vocals, additional keyboards and percussion
- Steve Rothery – guitar
- Pete Trewavas – bass, backing vocals
- Mark Kelly – keyboards, backing vocals
- Ian Mosley – drums, percussion
Additional musicians
- Charlton & Newbottle School Choir – choir (on "Man of a Thousand Faces")
- Tim Perkins – balalaika (on "Estonia")
- Phil Todd – saxophone (on "This Strange Engine")
- Paul Savage – trumpet (on "Hope for the Future")
Technical personnel
- Stewart Every – engineer
- Dave Meegan – mixing engineer
- Andrew Gent – artwork
- Hugh Gilmour – art direction, design
Charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+ 1997 chart performance for This Strange Engine
! scope="col"| Chart (1997)
! scope="col"| Peak<br />position
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|}
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+ 2024 chart performance for This Strange Engine
! scope="col"| Chart (2024)
! scope="col"| Peak<br />position
|-
|-
|}