Raw ranked Brave as one of the 20 greatest albums of 1994. In 2000 it was selected by Classic Rock as one of the "30 Best Albums of the 90s", and in 2003 as one of "Rock's 30 Greatest Concept Albums".
After trying and failing to reach a wider audience with Holidays in Eden, Marillion figured it was time to go back to their roots and make a more progressive rock-oriented album again. Brave is a concept album, based on a news story Steve Hogarth heard on the radio about a girl who was taken into police custody after being found wandering the Severn Bridge. She did not know who she was, where she came from and refused to even speak. This inspired Hogarth to write a fictional story about this girl and what might have led to her being on the Severn Bridge in this state.
The band relocated to Marouatte castle in France for the duration of the recording of Brave. The influence of these surroundings can be heard throughout the album in a lot of haunting atmospherics. They even went into a cave which lay in the nearby area and taped some cave sounds which were used as background ambiance on the album. This recording concept was later used by Radiohead for their OK Computer album. As engineer, they recruited Dave Meegan, who had previously worked with Marillion on Fugazi. As for EMI, they really wanted the band to do a 'quick record' to gain some revenue, but this project progressively escalated, taking the band nine months to write and produce, partly because of Meegan who would go through 'every single new tape made every day' each night listening for any riff or melody which sounded good enough to be included in the songs. This hard and tedious work paid off in the end.
Three singles from the album were released: "The Great Escape" (February 1994), "The Hollow Man" (March 1994) and "Alone Again in the Lap of Luxury" (April 1994).
The double-LP vinyl release of Brave features a double groove on the final side of the album, providing two endings to the story of this concept album. The first groove plays "The Great Escape" as heard on the CD, followed by "Made Again", providing the happy ending; the second groove plays "The Great Escape (Spiral Remake)" and 7 minutes of water noise, providing the downer ending. "The Great Escape (Spiral Remake)" was later included as a bonus track on the remastered re-issue, along with one minute of the water noise.
Richard Stanley directed a 50-minute film version of Brave which was released one year after the album. This film takes the downer ending presented by the second double groove.
The album was originally released on Cassette, double-vinyl LP and CD. In 1998, as part of a series of Marillion's first eight studio albums, EMI re-released Brave with remastered sound and a second disc containing bonus material, listed above. The remastered edition was later also made available without the bonus disc.
A new 180 gram vinyl pressing was released in May 2013 by EMI. It was identical to the original vinyl release from 1994, and included the double-grooved Side 4.
Brave will be released as part of the second in a series of deluxe box set editions of the 8 albums the band made for EMI between 1982-1995. It will be available in 4CD/Blu-Ray and 5LP vinyl box set form, both issued by Parlophone / RHINO on 9th March. The CD/BD version includes both the original stereo mix, my new stereo and 5.1 mixes, and a complete live performance from Paris in April 1994 newly mixed by Michael Hunter. The vinyl set includes the new stereo mix and the Paris show recording. The re-mix was done by Steve Wilson who is a good friend of the band.
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