By most calendar keepers, this reviewer is a latecomer to the progressive rock phenomenon known as Porcupine Tree. Many of the UK act’s “Überfans,” as bandleader/founder Steven Wilson refers to them, have been on board long before my introduction – some of them for close to 20 years. The 2000 album Lightbulb Sun and the 2002 breakthrough In Absentia were my entrées to their powerful combination of rock, dreampop, Pink Floyd-like psychedelia and ambient/downtempo grooves. Thrilling can’t begin to describe those discoveries, even now.
The band’s next album Deadwing, with its harder edge and driving, angular metal grooves, was a departure that caused some consternation in fan circles. The dread of the band veering into heavier, Opeth/Tool baroque metal territory and that their signature, cerebral psychedelics might take a back seat came swiftly. But the concept album’s intensity matched Wilson’s grand, elegant vision and Deadwing (and its accompanying tour) was eventually heralded as genius. Which it is.
All of which brings us to Fear of a Blank Planet, Wilson’s concept album nod to Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet and the novel Lunar Park by author Brett Easton Ellis. Many of the lyrics on Planet are homage to the latter-mentioned, with Wilson lamenting the loss identity, purpose and connectivity in an all-consuming media culture. The album melds all of Wilson’s sonic fetishes and thoughts together deftly; the interplay that he and bandmates Colin Edwin (bass), Richard Barbieri (keyboards) and Gavin Harrison (drums) share glows radiantly on this latest effort.
Wilson and company delivered the entire Planet oeuvre during their first of two sets at the House of Blues in Cleveland last Friday night. Along with longtime collaborator/touring guitarist John Wesley in tow, Porcupine Tree delivered all of the sonic peaks and valleys of Planet in virtuosic precision. Illustrating the album’s unholy communion of prescription medication, technological alienation and firearms, the band fortified the songs with filmmaker Lasse Holle’s rococo, film-noir imagery. It amounted to a stadium-sized concert packed into an intimate little club.
Article comments
1 - Paul Roy
Excellent review Peter. I caught their show at Ram's Head Live in Baltimore last night and it was amazing to say the least. They mixed in all of the new songs throughout the set, instead of playing the whole album at once. I don't know which way I would have preferred. The Fear of a Blank Planet material sounded incredible live, and gave me a new appreciation for the album, and the band.