Comments on: Porcupine Tree – The Incident

By: gabaghoul

gabaghoul — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:59:46 +0000

update: I’ve played Time Flies like 5 times today. Quickly becoming one of my favorite PT songs ever.

By: Blackwater Park

Blackwater Park — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 01:13:07 +0000

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz is right.

By: Dimaension X

Dimaension X — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 12:33:22 +0000

@gabaghoul – yeah, I think you’re right. I’ve had the chance to listen to the whole thing straight through now. I like it a lot, but is Porcupine Tree now becoming like Dream Theater? Still great music and a very enjoyable listen, but I think we’ve heard it before on their earlier albums.

But I still like it a lot.

By: gabaghoul

gabaghoul — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 02:03:20 +0000

@ Dimaension: that’s true for the last few albums (and there were still some great pop melodies here and there), but I’d hesitate to call The Incident heavy at all. Only one or two heavy moments over the entire running time.

By: Morppi

Morppi — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:04:47 +0000

Perhaps its just the lack of listening, but for me it seems that they rhythms on “Incident” aren’t just as innovative and catchy as they were on the the previous outings. Or it could be that the massive structure of the song/cd tends to cloud the mind and I just can’t recall any great grooves.

Also, if one looks at the few first albums by PT, one can say that the way PT’s music has evolved is not really something new to their career. Voyage 34 was one big massive trippy ride on the prog-train, filled with strange structures etc. The Sky Moves Sideways also has an ample amount of experimental songwriting on it. Its the middle-era (from Stupid Dream onwards methinks) that meddled more with simple, even compact songs (though Signify had tons of those which were godly).

So yea, Incident seems more like a return to the roots kind of an approach, though dosed with more heavy riffing than shroomy effect-porn that was prevalent on the first albums.

By: Dimaension X

Dimaension X — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:23:04 +0000

It seems since “In Absentia”, that Steven Wilson has tried to get progressively heavier and more complex, which is fine, but I think he may have lost sight of the great “pop” structures that he’s left behind that drew me to his music in the first place.

Or maybe he’s leaving the “poppier” sounds to Blackfield and making PT a full-on experimental heavy band.

By: dr_neo_cortex

dr_neo_cortex — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 04:41:05 +0000

After spinning this a few times I can say its definitely not on par with their classics but it has its moments, there are some good leads and melodies and even if all their little experiments don’t work its nice to see them trying new things. It is very subdued and melancholic compared to the last few PT releases, but I actually think this is much more layered and nuanced than a lot of their work and the production helps that a lot. It reveals more with each listen. That being it said it would be nice to see them flesh out some of the songs a bit more, and it does feel a bit incomplete.

By: timshel

timshel — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:22:21 +0000

Actually, an apt comparison may be to “On the Sunday of Life”. Not at all in musical style, but in the way that album has a similar mix of longer, more fully realized songs and shorter mood pieces and noisy intermissions. “Radioactive Toy” absolutely slays “Time Flies” for the requisite 10+ minute track, though. Come to think of it, some of Steven’s best work is on “Sunday”…

“Oh what the hell goes on inside your swollen head?” Hah, that’s good shit!

By: jk666

jk666 — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:03:41 +0000

Saw them last night in NYC and the slow/quiet parts just don’t work live. That means the whole piece doesn’t work live. The crowd was restless and seemed bored and talked a lot. I kept waiting for it to get interesting but it never did. During one of the heavier Opethian riffs I leaned over to my wife and did my best Mikael growl because it fit so well.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

By: gabaghoul

gabaghoul — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:09:45 +0000

@ neo cortex: it’s not as formless and psychedelic as those earlier albums. these songs still sound like latter-day PT but many are shorter pieces and a number are just interstitials.

By: Vance

Vance — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:54:54 +0000

Deadwing is one of their best albums… You guys all need to lay off the pipe.

By: dr_neo_cortex

dr_neo_cortex — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:16:03 +0000

Good review but it makes me afraid to listen to it. I’m a huge PT fan, I love all of their work. From the sound of this review, this album seems to have more in common with Metatonoia/voyage 34/staircase infinities, in that its more about moods and atmosphere than structured songs which is fine cause I like those albums but if the quality is lacking then this could end up being a real snoozer, oh well only one way to find out.

Oh and Deadwing is great idk what you people are talking about.

By: gabaghoul

gabaghoul — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:27:12 +0000

nice analysis timshel – wanna write some reviews?

I did read somewhere that Steven started working on this very soon after completing his solo album (which I have not heard); maybe he needed some more time to replenish and let things percolate?

By: timshel

timshel — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:11:41 +0000

I agree with your bottom line: it’s a good album, but not a great album, and certainly not one of PT’s best works. It feels unfinished. I wanted some of the shorter tracks to be developed more, especially “Kneel and Disconnect”, which could’ve been a very touching song if it had a few verses to flesh out the subject. Perhaps Steven wanted the album to feel like a bunch of “snapshots”, but I think that was a bad move. Each song/story truly becomes little more than an incident; no emotional attachment is allowed to develop nor is any real compassion felt for the victim/speaker — it’s like reading a newspaper, only in bad poetry. I don’t think he succeeded in what he was trying to do. I hope Steven and the guys spend more time and thought on the next one.

Still, I must say that I really like “Blind House”, can’t get it out of my head.

By: Storm King

Storm King — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:14:31 +0000

I find this to be a step up from Blank Planet, which I liked well enough but never really connected with. It does have a serious Floyd thing going on, which isn’t all that shocking given PT’s discography. I had the opposite reaction to the chorus of “Drawing The Line”-it’s almost triumphant, a counterpoint to the melancholy of the theme (and it’s worth noting that rather than being the climax of the suite, it’s a note of defiance buried by the overall tale of banality, which is the point after all.)

It works better for me thinking of it as a single 55 minute long song, so the shorter tracks are movements, not songs on their own. And it does remind me, at times, of Final Cut.

By: gabaghoul

gabaghoul — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:13:39 +0000

dude you thought Deadwing was garbage? Love Fear of a Blank Planet but it’s essentially Deadwing pt II. So that’s puzzling.

By: Barfneck

Barfneck — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:09:46 +0000

Heard this album and it just downright sucks. It just doesn’t do it for me. A huge departure from their excellent “Fear of a Blank Planet”. I actually think this is worse than “Deadwing” and that’s saying something coz that was garbage.