Porcupine Tree Classic Or Dud? Search & Destroy.

paste some good nuggets!
"Xbox is a God to me, My finger on the switch, my mother is a bitch, my father gave up ever trying to talk to me"

although now I've decided i like that line, and the album, mostly.

I'm listening to this for the first time, and it's surprisingly brilliant.

After having checked them out more closely, I find myself enjoying their lesser known electronica influenced mid 90s stuff better than the more famous and considerably more rock oriented 00s stuff.

There's always something interesting anyway though, and a huge variety of style throughout every album.

lots of tuneful catchy stuff on in absentia

somehow a bit frumpy though

I got a No-Man album last week! Flowermouth. It's awesome. A prog- rock Bark Psychosis, maybe?

Ha, I thought you were about to say you got the new one, which just came out (got my copy last week).

the new no-man album is wonderful, easily my favorite by them; I find a lot of the earlier stuff to sound very dated.

the new steven wilson solo album is also excellent, much better than the last Porcupine Tree album.

They are so goddamn hit or miss. I saw them with Opeth once. That was cool.

I saw them live and they were good but it is a kind of joyless, academic rocking out. king crimson appear to have more fun on stage.

akm you are otm. what a pleasant surprise. first song's pretty sweet and then "abandoner" comes on like portishead. good move burying the vocals too

bonus disc is pretty good too. the alternate version of "insurgentes" sounds a lot like talk talk. this might be the best set of songs he's come up with so far

new PT album is great, maybe their best full length, not sure. less cringey lyrics than "fear", though it does have the phrase "disembodied luminous hand" in a song which is both ridiculous and sublime. I reckon this, along with Wilson's solo record, and the Schoolyard Ghosts is one hell of a run.

Still need to get the solo. But yeah Schoolyard knocked it out of the park so good to hear this is maintaining standards...

Agree it's great, and apparently they have toned down those heavy Marshall riffs that were a bit too prominent on the previous three albums. Which is good. Still consider the last two of their 90s albums their best.

ned the solo album is great. the most down-to-earth thing i've heard by him

I agree, plus it sounds an awful lot like Radiohead to me – in a good way. In fact it sounds like the album Radiohead could and should have gone to to make after OK Computer. I suspect that if Insurgentes had Radiohead written on it it would be being hailed as a masterpiece by now.

Ha well considering that a late nineties lyric from Wilson included the line "You make me listen to The Bends" that's not so surprising!

DISEMODIED LUMINOUS HAND makes me listen to the Bends

cover is nice too, like the "picture" of "carles" the village voice ran last winter, sitting behind two computers with a gas mask on

There is also this other cover, although I'm unclear on which versions have which covers:

http://arcona.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/steven-wilson-insurgentes.jpg

yeah this new album is pretty good, probably better than FOABP although that album DID have some storming highlights (well, the opening and closing tracks, maybe My Ashes)

wanna hear 'insurgentes'

In fact it sounds like the album Radiohead could and should have gone to to make after OK Computer.

I feel that Mew are doing the same thing. Elbow and Muse also started the same way, but have sort of developed there own thing (Elbow more rhytm oriented whereas Muse have taken the pomp and circumstance to new levels, adding a bit of Queen)

really think i need to re-evaluate this band from 'occasionally very good if largely one-dimensional and repetitive psych-metal act' to 'genuinely important indie/metal crossover act with a largely fine body of work'

I've only listened to this new one once so far, but it seems like the best I've heard from them yet.

yeah I can't believe you wouldn't love this, LJ. although there is a fair amount of their stuff that doesn't work for me. Also, still, to this day, most No Man albums leave me completely cold, they just sound so, so dated. The last one was good though.

still, to this day, most No Man albums leave me completely cold, they just sound so, so dated

Out. (I have the new DVD on order.)

The new one is great and I think it works well because of the profusion of shorter tracks among the more fleshed-out songs. Ideas don't live on anywhere beyond their sell-by date.

So I should give this one a chance then? The last one was my first try with these guys and as I mentioned before the lyrics just killed it for me.

I never really listen to the lyrics of PT. They sort of slide subconsciously by. Give this a listen, yeah. It is ** ****** so you don't have to go far.

lol er *******, I meant

other than "disembodied luminous hand", the lyrics on this one are great. even that line is kind of great.

I do like the last No Man record, Ned. And individual tracks here and there.

I dunno, that lyric about being weaned on Zeppelin is sorta precious...

missed that line, unless you mean the 'i was born in 67, the year of sgt pepper and are you experienced" line, which I like

'glass arm shattering' is like musical morphine to me

I might be in the minority, but I thought 'The Incident' wasn't very good. To me, it seemed to be a bunch of fragments that didn't really come together and some of the music seems to be rehashed from previous songs, which they have done a bit before but in a more clever way. Maybe it is the lack of 'marshall riffs' but really even on the pre-crunchy Porcupine Tree the tunes while epic are still catchy and memorable. This one is just an sonic blob that never really gets defined. I've gone back to the well a few more times to see if it is a grower record, but it hasn't caught up with me at all.

I don't listen to it very much any more. Aside from 'Drawing The Line' and 'Time Flies' it isn't exactly memorable.

I'm mostly a fair-weather fan of PT (prefer I.E.M. and Bass Communion much more), but the recent Tape Op interview with Wilson was pretty inspiring. Rather shocked (but not surprised) to learn that his recording studio these days is just a laptop, a really good microphone, and wherever he happens to find inspiration.

His remixes of those King Crimson records sound pretty sharp!

saw them this week in SF (they are touring with coheed and cambria for some awful reason; luckily we were spared that in SF and they played a two hour set), it was great although all the little things about steven wilson's stage manner that bugged me before still bug me. But, I am mainly reviving this to note that he has apparently finished the Cover Version series of singles and they are coming out compiled; I've heard all of these and they're really good, particularly his cover of Kate Bush's "Lord of the Reedy River".

New SW solo album on the way:

http://www.gracefordrowning.com/

anyone heard steven wilson's new solo album? dying to know if it's as awesome as his last one

. . .and so far, it is! second time in a row i'm preferring this moodier, less bombastic side of him to porcupine tree. recording under his own name seems to provoke more tastefulness, perhaps

song that closes out the first disc is killing me

"raider ii" sounds like he's been to lizard lately

wide-ranging SW interview here:

http://www.innerviews.org/inner/wilson.html

yes the latest solo album is excellent.

also that's a pretty good interview. wilson comes across much better these days than he used to when his press releases and stuff were just filled with ego boasting and self-aggrandizement (or so they seemed to me at the time; I avoided his music for a few years because of it). really anticipating the storm corrision album. seeing wilson in april (and opeth in april as well! not together though).

I preferred The Incident to Fear of a Blank Planet. It seemed to take a step away from prog-metal that mirrored the increasingly diverse sound of his solo records. "I Drive the Hearse" is top 5 SW.

Another thing I admire about him is the effort he puts into the packaging of his albums. The hardback illustrated books and whatnot are very special. I'm kicking myself for not picking up the limited edition of the new one, which is now going for €200.

Saw PT live once in Boston just so I could be in the same room as mega-genius, Richard Barbieri.

RICHARD BARBIERI !!!

all of you going bonkers over that raven song, have a listen to this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAc5JCKfgZ0

Listened. It's ok but nothing like as good as "The Raven..." Plus, who's to say whether Wilson ever heard it or not.

bought The Raven on impulse a while back and misplaced it and forgot about it and found it this morning and opened it and played it and wow....this is fantastic

it really is. also, he's playing melbourne in october.

Holy shit, this "Raven" album is awesome.

right? listened again today, I just love it.

I love how much it adheres to classic '70s prog (well, Genesis, at least) while not sounding retro and also finding ways to toss in other musical references (whomever upthread noted that Wilson remixing the Crimson catalog has rubbed off well on him was OTM).

Wilson has uploaded a recording of the first song PT ever played live, sounds pretty great to me:

https://soundcloud.com/#steven-wilson/porcupine-tree-voyage-34-nags

Best Porcupine Tree joke ever.

Desus & Mero & Funky Gary the darknet Porcupine Tree bootleg site moderator who came through with the shrooms pic.twitter.com/lgAdqiHJBo

— PAPPADEMAS (@PAPPADEMAS) February 4, 2020

New social media activity:

? https://t.co/J0DV1klOKy#PTCC pic.twitter.com/omodPlRhO4

— Porcupine Tree (@PorcupineTree) October 28, 2021

Really hope this is about new stuff & not just some lame remaster or reissue.

New album and tour!

Some folks are no doubt going to say that this is a reaction to the lukewarm response to the last two SW albums, which they've anticipated by making it clear that the album is "12 years in the making". A back-to-basics record, perhaps?

New track's a banger though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW5v4Ohxk5k

I'm cautiously optimistic and dig the first track but, man, I hate how far ahead Wilson releases first singles. The album isn't out for a full eight months, ffs.

New interview:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/mar/10/reunited-prog-rockers-porcupine-tree-on-surviving-their-rift-you-cant-help-but-feel-bitter

It did seem like Wilson just ran out of steam. I did not like 'The Incident' or much of his music that followed I heard all that much.

Stupid Dream > Deadwing was a really great run.

strange, because I find his solo albums much more involving than most PTree releases. that said I'm jazzed about this album and this tour, even though tickets were expensive as fuck. I've never paid this much money for Wilson or PTree in the past.

I think The Raven That Refused to Sing was fantastic and represented the peak of his solo work, been kind of diminishing returns for me since then, though I suspect it's more because I've kinda lost interest in the particular threads he's been chasing down, especially on the last two solo albums.

I am super excited for this one though.

That interview was weird, it does not paint a very pretty picture of Wilson and they all kind of do Colin dirty. There's not even a fleeting reference to him or acknowledgment that he was even a part of the band.

Yeah I wonder what went down with Colin Edwin

maybe i already said this before but colin used to live in the flat upstairs when my wife and i first moved in together. would hear him practsing his double-bass through the ceiling and it sounded cool, had no idea who porcupine tree were though. seemed like a nice guy

apparently that was in 1997-ish, just in case you were wondering (you so weren't)

I always felt that his kinda festi-dub meets the shopkeeper from Mr Ben vibe didn't really jive with the rest of the band.

It causes me mild dismay that some Porcupine Tree fans refer to them as "The Porkies". Still never really heard them, my taste in mainstream prog ceases at around 1976 though so maybe for the best. Apologies for shit contribution to the thread anyway.

theres only one porky and he does the prime cuts

In Absentia was a huge album for me in 2002-03 at the tail end of high school. I played it today for the first time in 20 years, and it still sounds wonderful to my ears, but I have no idea where to listen next in the Porcupine Tree discography and/or Steven Wilson Cinematic Universe. Should I move forward or backward from here? Are there specific albums I should seek out or avoid? Any pointers appreciated.

Stupid Dream and Lightbulb Sun are both pretty similar. I think I like those two slightly better but yea those 3 make up my favorite PT phase. They get a little heavier after that (Deadwing is still good), their prior stuff is spacey and nice but sometimes too derivative. Like it's a really good impression of King Crimson and Pink Floyd but he seems reluctant to do much that those groups don't do.

I also recently listened to In Abenstia for the first time in forever, it's really well made but it's made for a specific audience I think. Everyone I knew who was big into it was also into Radiohead and In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, it's music for misanthropic-leaning teenagers who spend a lot of time alone and have deep thoughts. My wife has a 19 year old cousin and I found out this era of PT is still really huge in the college dorms in Mexico

wilson has a huge following in Mexico. It's still the only place I've randomly run into people on the street wearing his or PTree tour shirts.

I'd recommend Deadwing after In Absentia, it's a very similar album with the same proportion of heavy stuff to ballads. Last few tracks on Deadwing are exceptional.