This Strange Engine is Marillion's ninth studio album and originally appeared in 1997, the first album the band made after EMI let them go. Marillion produced it themselves at their own Racket Club studio in Buckinghamshire. Steve Hogarth drew on personal memory for the lyrics, most clearly on Estonia, written after he met a survivor of the MS Estonia ferry disaster. The title track closes the album as a long autobiographical piece that moves through scenes from Hogarth's youth towards a climax. Around it sit more compact songs, among them Man of a Thousand Faces and 80 Days. This edition is a 2-LP set.