Porcupine Tree

[Soubasse]

Halo is still in my top 5 PT faves - excellent song. Says a great deal using a few words.

For what it's worth, my take on The Incident is that it's not as cohesive an album as many of their previous. Conceptually, it doesn't hold together as well as FOABP or its predecessors Deadwing and In Absentia. There are many strong musical moments in The Incident but they don't go to the same places as previous material. Lyrically it's also marred for me by what I feel are some unnecessarily gratuitous profanities. It's nothing compared to a great deal of anti-social hate-filled crap being spouted by rappers and hip-hoppers, but I was still disappointed that it had appeared in the otherwise usually sensible output from Steve Wilson.

Time Flies and The Seance are high points for me at the moment after a few repeated listenings of the album, and Drawing The Line has a playful reminder of the post-punk sound from the 80s UK stuff.

[Buttercup89]

I actually really like The Incident especially because it has a noticeable touch of Pink Floyd, a band which no one has been able to "copy" before this album. I think it's a beautiful album with an almost tangible sense of melancholy, a red thread throughout, and yet rich with variation.

Oooooh, and I see them on Sunday!

[Soubasse]

Rub it in then!!

Let's know how it goes - I'm curious about how much back catalogue they're playing at the moment. They're hopefully coming down to Oz again next year.

[Art Rock]

The incident has not lived up to my (probably too high) expectations so far. Too much filler, too few highlights. Still one of the best albums of the year but after Fear of a blank planet (which I now rate as one of the 5 best albums ever made) it is a clear step back.

[Buttercup89]

The concert was amazing, though they did not play Halo.
The first 55 minutes of the set was dedicated to the entire first cd of the album The Incident, and in the background they had a timed movie by Lasse Hoile playing throughout in true Pink Floyd essense. Second half of the set was dedicated to older songs. Wilson was of course amazing, on key and on beat throughout the entire show and drowning in emotion, but I surprised at how small he was! :P
The Harrison(drummer) was, of course, astoundingly tight throughout the experience, and John Wesley (guitar) seemed overjoyed whenever he got a chance to sing, at which he excells, it should be mentioned. Though his joy was a bit out of place next to Wilsons melancholy, it was a pleasure to watch, and he was drawing the eyes of the audience throughout. Richard Barbieri (keyboard) perfectly complemented the sound of the band, though he did not get much time to shine for himself. Colin Edwin (bassist) had the same amazing sound on his threadless as always, though he did miss a note in the beginning of the show. I was in the middle of the room more or less, so the sound was well balanced though I do not know how it was in the rest of the room. Drawing the Line, The Incident, Normal, and Anesthethise were the best songs live (matter of opinion I suppose) and drew the entire audience in.

The audience, by the way was an odd mesh. In the crowd I a few mohawks, and punk teenieboppers, some hippies, a few designer-clad middle-aged ladies, mili clothed guys, and a splurge of people who had a chance to appreciate pink floyd at its height, and obviously did :P. Ages were everywhere from 15 to 60, which created a very strange but pleasant atmosphere, which was welcoming of everyone. The mood was pretty mellow but pleasant throughout the concert, with focuse clearly on the music.

Fun note: One guy was yelling out "hell yeah" or something along those lines at one point when Wilson began to speak. He abruptly ended mid-sentence and said in a calm and (maybe too) quite voice "Excuse me, be quiet when I speak" and an awed hush fell over the crowd.

[Soubasse]

Thanks for that Buttercup, clearly they played a great show (no Halo is surprising though! In Melbourne last year, it was the very final song of the night). Sounds as though they're still attracting the same very mixed crowds too.

Fascinating that SW put a member of the crowd in their place, for him that's kind of ... wow! He's always seemed fairly level-headed in dealing with crowds (I enjoyed the brief banter with a crowd member at the end of the Arriving Somewhere DVD when he's announcing Trains).

I'm getting the impression that it's fairly important to them/him (by that I mean perhaps the band in general but certainly SW in particular) that people are taking in the full performance of The Incident. I noticed that a lot of the venues to date have been sit-down, theatre venues. Curious that he seems to be taking this album a lot more seriously than the previous. To be honest, I thought the subject matter of FOABP was generally far more serious and "intense" than The Incident. I hope he's not too burned by what's been a relatively lukewarm reception by fans (not that he really needs to care!! )

Re the Pink Floyd influence you mentioned earlier. It's true that sections of The Incident are obviously inspired by PF, but if you've heard any of Stupid Dream, I can think of at least 3 songs there that could easily have been penned by Gilmour, Wright, Mason and Waters. And it's known that SW was a fair PF fan so the influences are bound to crop up in some way or another. I agree with you that Porcupine Tree have captured it better than most, whilst still managing to inject a notable amount of originality.

[deven]

The Incident, their last album is phenomenal, if you give it proper time, and so is Fear Of A Blank Planet, but if you want to get familiar with their music you might want to start with Stars Die. I love both sides of Porcupine Tree, but here is my review of Stars Die (from amazon.com) which lists some of their beautiful softer songs:

All of us who are not familiar with the first 7 years of Porcupine Tree's repertoire should get this compilation immidiately. It contains a lot of great music including many mellow atmospheric pieces Steven is such a master of. The entire 2cd collection just flows and you can listen to it for days without end. My very favorite songs here include Fadeway, Fuse The Sky, Rainy Taxi (this is one of my favorite pieces of all music), The Sky Moves Sideways, Radioactive Toy, Dark Matter, Stars Die. It is an awesome release which comes with a very nicely written story of Steven Wilson's teenage years and his early psychedelic work; talks about his musical influences and discribes the gunius of his talents, character strengths and his business sense. This double album is the most important Porcupine Tree release we all should have and a great way for us to find out if we feel the need to explore their past further. Please remember that Porcupine Tree's early years were very psychedelic and spacey, more accoustic and ambient and less bass and drum driven. I don't the Dream Theatre (another band I love) to be dissolutioned. Porcupine Tree is the rock music act on the scale of Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Joy Division or Led Zeppelin. Steven Wilson is one of the most talented and ambitious musicians around and he has so much to offer to so many of us. If you like the softer side of his music (which i personally love) than you have to look into his other significant music project No-Man (Steven's collaboration with vocalist Steve Bowness, started before Porcupine Tree was even born). My 2 favorite No-Man albums are Together We're Stranger and Schoolyard Ghosts. You could get All The Blue Changes, which is a very similiar concept to Stars Die, a double retrospective album. If you like the harder and heavier side of Steven Wilson's music, well, Porcupine Tree is your band and some of their later albums are turning your direction more and more. Fear Of The Blank Planet is a great album as is their newest The Incident, which is full of everything and which probably requires a few more listens be able to get into it at depth. If you are a Porcupine Tree diehard lover, you should listen to another one of Steven Wilson's projects, the first album of Blackfield (Glow and Cloudy Now are my favorite songs on it). Coming back to Stars Die, if you like me are sensitive to the echoes of Pink Floyd's music, you will find your moments here, as for example in Voyage 34. You have reached your Pink Floyd Memorial and please research Porcupine Tree's earlier work further, as well as music of Mostly Autumn and RPWL. These 3 phenomenal bands could become your new home base from now on. If you happen to love the softer, more refine and emotional side of Porcupine Tree, listen to the songs dearest to me. Here is a list of songs I ended up selecting for my In And Out Of Dream compilation:
1. Fadeway
2. Fuse The Sky
3. Cloudy Now
4. Rainy Taxi
5. Glow - Mistakes
6. The Colour Of Air
7. I Find That I'm Not There
8. Lazarus
9. Glass Arm Shattering
10. .3
11. Radioactive Toy
12. Dark Matter
13. Heart Attack In A Layby
14. Always Never
After getting to know The Incident my plan was to remove Always Never and install Drawing The Line...somewhere. Now I am having second thoughts...There are too many great songs on The Incident and I might just wait a couple of years or add No-Man to the mix...

[TheMaz]

Hi all,

I'm a big fan of PT, and I have most of their albums. I saw them live 5 times, and I'm going to see them again on May 7th in Montreal.

I would like to recommend Nil Recurring, an EP that came out right after FOABP. It contains songs that were recorded during FOABP sessions, but didn't go with the concept. It contains 4 songs, and they're all very good. Particularly "What happens now", if you like complex rythms and awesome drum playing.

Have fun !

Johnny

[Outsourcingser]

me too.
nice to meet you.

[RonenA]

Nothing like closing your eyes and listening to Deadwing start to finish. That'll put you in a mood.