Not many of you will have heard of Porcupine Tree (Shame on you!!) unless you vaguely remember me mentioning them, or have seen one of their videos on Scuzz/Kerrang or the like. Porcupine Tree are a Progressive Rock band based in Hemel Hempstead (Just up the road from here) and are fronted by musical genius and workaholic Steven Wilson. He has 6 projects for which he is currently writing and recording songs with – Porcupine Tree; Blackfield; No-Man; IEM; Bass Communion; & his Solo Project – and he is mixing the King Crimson back catalogue in 5.1 for future release. Now Steven Wilson's previous album (Solo project “Insurgentes”) was my Album of the Year for 2008, and Fear Of A Blank Planet (Porcupine Tree album number 9) and it's accompanying EP Nil Recurring I believe were my Album of the Year for 2007 (I think...), so it's safe to say that The Incident has a lot to live up to.
Before I indulge in talking about the music I believe I should explain a bit about the album format, The Incident in itself probably, to the uneducated eye (/ear), is the definition of Prog Rock... A single 55 minute song (albeit divided into 14 track names) on one disk and 4 further tracks on the second (acting like FOABP and Nil Recurring in a way).
This format however shouldn't deter you from giving The Incident a listen. While the album is best when listened to, in it's entirety, without any interruptions it is possible to pick out a few choice tracks if should the need arrive.
The first disk of The Incident is a tremendous piece of music, with a vast musical and lyrical variety throughout the entire piece. Drawing The Line is a fantastic section 10 minutes in which has SW rhythmically chanting the lyrics “I'm drawing the line” (among others) with such emotion that it's difficult not to be moved, even without realising the lyrics are about self-harm.
The title track The Incident delivers a swift change of tempo and style, deeper and broodier than earlier stuff, and with lyrics talking about the feeling of separation when experiencing a car crash.
The follow-up track Your Unpleasant Family is a fairly entertaining track lyrically, due to the lines “Your unpleasant family, Smashed up my car (Perfectly uncalled for)”, and also succeeds in reversing what the previous track did by upping the speed and treating us to a delightful guitar solo.
Time Flies opens with the line “I was born in '67, the year of Sergeant Pepper and Are You Experienced” and listening to this album you would think that The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix have had very little influence on PT's musical/lyrical style at all. The band would have been better off to try and fit The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (also released in '67) into the opening line, because Pink Floyd have much more in common with PT than either The Beatles or Hendrix. In fact The Incident sounds vaguely similar to Animals Floyd's 1977 album (precursor to The Wall). This track is bookended by two fantastic guitar riffs which would make Hendrix proud and the borderline psychedelic rock which links the two wouldn't be out of place on Sgt. Pepper.
The final track in the song cycle, I Drive The Hearse, is a rather fitting ending to the piece. Quiet, emotional, epic. My words don't do it justice, if you are to listen to one section of this album then listen to this track.
The four songs on the second CD are more like what I have come to expect from Porcupine Tree, Flicker and Remember Me Lover are the two tracks of note on this CD (Although Black Dahlia and Bonnie The Cat are excellent tracks). Flicker is an observational song about the fact that there is only a “flicker” of light left to come from the sun (in comparison with the rest of its existence). Remember Me Lover is an immense and heavy track, with lyrics about a relationship gone sour and the harsh line “And this too, I hated you, I wish you learn to keep your mouth shut .”. Ouch.
In conclusion this album is perhaps the best album Porcupine Tree (and maybe even Steven Wilson) have ever made, the way that all of the tracks ebb and flow and interconnect despite being so different is genius. To really benefit from the mix of the album you need to listen to the CD version, if not then a 256kbps rip of it, there are so many subtle yet important tweaks that you will miss if you do otherwise. So now onto the scoring.
Writing – 10 –
Lyrics are fantastic and meaningful all the way through the duration of the album, and never falter.
Flow Of The Album – 10 –
The song cycle flows fantastically from start to finish, and listening with the four other tracks, you might not even notice that they're not a part of the piece.
Originality – 7 –
The album format is very original for Porcupine Tree, some of the music however is not, I occasionally thought to myself “Hey, this sounds sort of like (enter track name here) from (enter PT album here)”
Overall Sound – 9 –
The overall sound of the album is great, I do have a minor grievance with the fact that it's not as heavy as the previous album was, which is what was so great about Blank Planet.
(~S~)
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