Sunday of Life [Original recording remastered]

Porcupine Tree | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 2, 2000)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Delerium Records
• ASIN: B00004S2V6
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #302,743 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Music for the Head

2. Jupiter Island

3. Third Eye Surfer

4. On the Sunday of Life...

5. The Nostalgia Factory

6. Space Transmission

7. Message from a Self Destructing Turnip

8. Radioactive Toy

9. Nine Cats

10. Hymn

11. Footprints

12. Linton Samuel Dawson

13. And the Swallows Dance Above the Sun

14. Queen Quotes Crowley

15. No Luck With Rabbits

16. Begonia Seduction Scene

17. This Long Distance

18. It Will Rain for a Million Years

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Something of a Mixed Bag, May 10, 2000

By 

P. A. Agnew (Wellington New Zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sunday of Life (Audio CD)

Originally released in 1992, "On the Sunday of Life" is Porcupine Tree's debut album. Porcupine Tree's earlier output consisted of three privately recorded tapes: "Tarquin's Seaweed Farm" (1989), "The Nostalgia Factory" and "Love, Death and Mussolini" (both 1991). Porcupine Tree was basically Steven Wilson's "one man band" at this stage - judging from this debut, he obviously wanted to hone his sound and technique first, before taking on additional bandmembers.

Generally speaking, "On the Sunday of Life" is a compilation of the best material from those early cassettes. The album consists of 9 brief "ambient" instrumentals and an equal number of songs. At this point, Steven Wilson had yet to find his distinctive "sound." In general, the album takes its cues from Pink Floyd/Syd Barrett era pop.

Wilson does a wonderful Barrett imitation on "Jupiter Island." "Nine Cats" is also a successful attempt at the genre. Elsewhere, he stumbles. "This Long Silence" and "The Nostalgia Factory" suffer badly from slightly "sped up" vocal tracks. "Linton Samuel Dawson" is probably the worst - although the music itself is good, the high pitched vocals leave Wilson sounding like bad imitation Geddy Lee.

The nine instrumental tracks are well crafted, but generally, they are unmemorable. The Expanding Flan drums up an impressive storm on "Third Eye Surfer," a pity there's nothing solid around to support it. An incomprehensible monologue pervades "Space Transmission," but again the track just soars away without leaving any impression. The same can be said for all the other instrumental tracks on the album - well crafted, but without much impact. Evidently, Wilson had yet to perfect the art of the instrumental. You might want to compare these instrumentals with those on the reissed "Voyage 34" album. Released only one year after this debut, it demonstrates how quickly Wilson's instrumental skills developed over such a short time.

However, two tracks on this debut have become Porcupine Tree classics, and it's worth getting the album for them alone. The first is the 10 minute "Radioactive Toy" which is a real harbinger of the Porcupine Tree to come. Describing the song in words would not do it justice. Suffice it to say that many fans still consider "Radioactive Toy" to be the band's best work.

But perhaps the best song on the album is the insistently percussive "And The Swallows Dance Above the Sun." Here, tightly wound drums and bass support a breathless Wilson vocal. Again, you need to hear the song to fully appreciate it.

So, overall, this album is a bit of a mixed bag. It shows a lot of promise, but betrays the fact that Wilson had yet to develop a coherent sound. Some music critics were ready to write off Porcupine Tree as "just another neo-prog" band upon hearing this album, but a year later he went and recorded the astonishing "Up The Downstair," but that's another story...

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Steve Wilson's experiment, and quite excellent it is!, June 24, 2001

By 

Goobie Doober (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sunday of Life (Audio CD)

This the first disc put out by Porcupine Tree when PT was really just Steve Wilson writing and performing all the instruments on all the songs.

I almost didn't buy this disc, for the reviews marked it as uneven, and an indication of all the different directions that PT could have gone, but was still unsure of at this time. I, however, like to think of this disc as a trailor to all the directions that Steve Wilson and Porcupine Tree HAVE gone!

Yes, this is an extremely eclectic mix of musical styles, but that is not a drawback. No, on the contrary, that is what makes PT such an amazing band -- each song sounds so completely different, yet all of them are fantastic.

"Jupiter Island," "Radioactive Toy," and "Nine Cats" -- those three songs alone make the disc worth getting. I mean, even if the rest of the disc were not great, I would still buy it just for those three songs. Yet, the rest of the disc IS great.

This disc marks the beginning of Steve Wilson's and Porcupine Tree's multi-direction settings, and it's easily the BEST debut I've ever heard by any band ever . . . . .

. . . of course, Porcupine Tree is one of the best bands on the face of this planet!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars diamond in the rough, July 12, 2004

By 

El Kabong (Bethesda, Maryland United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sunday of Life (Audio CD)

To those who wrote harsh reviews of On The Sunday of Life, you have to understand first that this is Steven Wilson's earliest and very experimental work, and is a compilation of what he did which is why it sounds so diverse. It's Steven Wilson the mad scientist, and was probably never really meant to be released, but the material is actually pretty good all things considering he was a ONE-MAN band in the very beginning. Some of the material contains the raw sound of what Porcupine Tree would eventually become, such as Radioactive Toy. There is also a little humor injected such as the odd Message from a Self-Destructing Turnip and Linton Samuel Dawson, and trippy songs like Jupiter Island. Listen to the album for what it is, which is the beginnings of what would be a terrific group.