Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: How We Live
Label: Portrait
Released: 1987
Length: 55:24
Rating: 4/5
Four years before joining prog rock legends Marillion, singer and (occasional) keyboardist Steve Hogarth tried his musical luck with a short-lived art pop rock project called How We Live. It rose from the ashes of Steve’s previous band, the new wave outfit The Europeans, who before splitting up put out two rather interesting but largely overlooked records, »Vocabulary« (1983) and »Recurring Dreams« (1984). Of the former Europeans, the talented guitarist Colin Woore joined Hogarth, occasionally adding backing vocal harmonies too. Despite the promising start, with Hogarth and Woore signing to the well-known label CBS and heading into Peter Gabriel’s studio to record, their effort, which ended up producing a really good album called »Dry Land«, never got the payoff it deserved.
All the singles from the album went completely unnoticed, and commercially How We Live was a total catastrophe, even though Hogarth is still proud of »Dry Land« as a whole and now and then regrets that a second studio album never saw the light of day. But in 1987 the disappointment was complete, and with a music career stuck in a dead end, Steve even started thinking about becoming a postman or a milkman. Luckily, one last roll of the dice came along: on a friend’s tip, Steve learned that Marillion were looking for a new singer after Fish’s departure, and after a successful audition was picked for the job, living out a boyhood dream and becoming a member of one of the most exciting and celebrated prog rock bands of all time.
Before long Hogarth established himself as one of the most unique singers and stage commanders in progressive rock, and the revamped Marillion have been unthinkable without that vocal talent since 1989, while plenty of How We Live ideas came back to life in new form and had a major influence on Marillion’s further sonic evolution. In 1991 Marillion released their second album with Hogarth, »Holidays In Eden«, which featured a rearranged version of the central How We Live standard »Dry Land« (it even became the second single from that album), while the main melody from the least interesting How We Live song, »Simon’s Car«, mutated into the unforgettable classic »Cover My Eyes«.
The song »You Don’t Need Anyone« also went through an interesting transformation in Marillion’s hands and later appeared on the reissue of »Holidays In Eden«. Among the key »Dry Land« highlights are also the excellent »All The Time in the World«, for which How We Live shot a completely overlooked promo video, and the epic catalyst »A Beat in the Heart«, which sounds like a close encounter between late Roxy Music and Hogarth-era Marillion.
»Dry Land«, the one and only How We Live record, is pretty rare these days, but it’s still a very good album, and especially interesting for fans of the Marillion classic »Holidays In Eden«, where the major sonic renaissance that came with Hogarth’s arrival was impossible to miss. Structurally, most of the songs on »Dry Land« were closer to pop rock than prog rock, though stylistically it wandered into art rock territory a few times, which isn’t surprising given that it was really Hogarth’s in-between songwriting phase, somewhere between Europeans and the future Marillion sound.
Lineup
Steve Hogarth – vocals, keyboards
Colin Woore – guitar
Production
How We Live
Tracklist
1. Working Girl
2. All the Time in the World
3. Dry Land
4. Games In Germany
5. India
6. The Rainbow Room
7. Lost At Sea
8. In The City
9. Working Town
10. A Beat in the Heart
