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 In an interview some years ago, Steven Wilson revealed that while he'd initially maintained a healthy disdain for metal, his exposure to 'underground metal' from Sweden had a serious impact on him. Never mind that the bands he was referring to - Opeth and Meshuggah - are about as far underground as Malmsteen's ego, I can imagine it feels that way to someone outside looking in for the first time. The end result was the metal influence made its way into In Absentia, the subsequent Porcupine Tree album, lending a very effective edge to several of the songs, and it also helped define the next one, Deadwing, which is arguably the band's finest hour.
So as a follow-up to that opus, how does Fear of a Blank Planet fare? First thing, it looks like Wilson's metal injection has been a long-term effect, but here he strikes out with further ambition. The songs on this album are longer, move through more changes and collectively dwarf even Arriving Somewhere...But Not Here, previously their most intimidating track, lengthwise.
Wilson's reputation as an immaculate producer is certainly not undeserved, as on several occasions, when a whole bunch of different sounds collide together in what ought to be chaotic cacophony, he manages to keep each element clear and distinct. One niggle as a songwriter is that he seems to have developed this unhealthy fascination with extended tail-ends. Both the title track and the monster 18-minute Anesthetize have protracted dirge-like passages after the main meaty portions of the songs that are especially annoying, considering that both are followed by comparitively slow numbers.
Speaking of Anesthetize, that's the center piece of the whole show here, and for the most part it does a great job. Moving on from a hauntingly gloomy beginning, it slowly but deliberately piles on the pressure and aggression, a guest solo by Alex Lifeson helping push it towards an uptempo midsection with quite a few violent bursts in between. Drummer Gavin Harrison, who first really impressed me with his chops and groove on the Arriving Somewhere... live DVD, gets ample opportunity to cut loose. If not for the 5 and a half minute death rattle at the end, this would have been ideal.
Way out of Here in a way is an almost abbreviated version of the above, working spacey portions, the big chorus, and the heavy-handed aggro slam out of nowhere into a far less intimidating timeframe, and gets my stamp of approval. I could be biased because Robert Fripp had a hand in engineering the sound. Heh. I'm not too convinced by the two slow songs, though. None of them are overtly Coldplay like Lazarus or Collapse the Light into Earth, and they're well orchestrated, but my verdict is that they slow down the proceedings and may have to be skipped in future replays, unless I'm feeling particularly magnanimous. Ditto for the industrial-like Sleep Together that closes the album - it's a bit too plodding for my tastes.
But the good really outweighs the bad on the whole. More than half of this album is awesome music, and the remainder is only disappointing by comparison. Steven Wilson has done an awesome job working around his average singing ability and un-virtuoso guitar playing to concentrate on the far more important task of crafting his band's sound and playing to their strengths, and it's heartening to see that Porcupine Tree are fast becoming one of the most reliable bands in the progressive genre. Oh, and check out the Nil Recurring EP released shortly after this album - also very worthy output.
Year of release: 2007
Label: Roadrunner, Atlantic
Lineup:
Steven Wilson - vocals, guitar
Richard Barbieri - keyboards
Colin Edwin - bass
Gavin Harrison - drums
External Links:
Official band
Myspace page
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