Customer Reviews

Sunday of Life

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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...

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!

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.

....and listened to this awsome album! Let me start off by saying I was just recently introducted to Porcupine Tree with Signify. I then got In absentia. Then I got whatever I could get my hands on. I recently got On the Sunday of Life... and loved it. True, there is a lot of diversity on this album, from mellow Floyd-like tunes, to ones that sound like they could have come from Ween. But believe it or not, it all holds together! Who wants an album in which you can't tell the songs apart? I love the way it starts off with one song with lyrics, then gives us several instrumentals, then gets back to songs with lyrics. I love this album and very glad I shelled out the full price for it. I love the Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds referrence in Footprints, but my favorite lyrics have to be to Nine Cats. It's not just what they say, its the music and how he sings them. Here they are:

The butterfly sailed on the breeze
Past a field of barbed wire trees
Where golden dragons chased around
Pampered poppies on the ground
Two silver trout sat way on high
And watche a royal samurai
Plant two orchids in a box
And strap it to a laughing fox
A minstrel bought a crooked spoon
He gave it to a blue baboon
Who filled it full of virgin snow
And wandered in the afterglow
Fat toad stood in his ballet shoes
Teaching sixteen kangaroos
How to skip across the lake
They found it hard to stay awake
A pharaoh played a merry tune
And watched nine cats dance on the moon
I didn't know what all this meant
I didn't know why I'd been sent.

Now, you are probably scratching your head and wondering how that could sound. Well, you'll never guess, you just have to listen to it. That's what I'm gonna do, right now.

This is the first Porcupine Tree and maybe not the most accessible, but definately a must have. 6 stars!

If you are a PT fan then this is a MUST for your collection. It gives a true, intimate look into the early days of PT (most where only Steve Wilson and his instruments made the magic alone). The songwriting is much more playful, drug-influenced, and whimsical than later PT releases. Vocally, you can hear a lot of experimentation.(most because Wilson claimed he didn't feel confident about his voice - why?). This collection contains the epic cut "Radioactive Toy" which is still one of my favorite PT songs EVER and that guitar solo, WOW! If you're a fan, get this!

Like many PT fans, I'm very surprised that this CD gets such a bad rap. Steve Wilson says on the PT website that he never meant this CD to be released, but that it's a good representation of all the different directions Porcupine Tree could have gone. I disagree with him. I think it's a representation of all the different ways that Porcupine Tree DID go. Many times when I get a debut CD by a band I've been listening to for awhile, it just doesn't measure up or contain anything impressive, but that's not the case here. This release stands on its own as a terrific PT album. I should also mention that the sound quality is definitely better than some people are making out to be in their reviews. Yes, there is a little tape hiss sometimes, and there are a couple of treble-heavy moments, but these things are at a minimum, and I'm sure that has a lot to do with this being a remastered version.

This is Porcupine Tree's first disk, and as others have noted, it is very much of a mixed bag-- both in style and quality. I've heard some folks who are only familiar with band's more mature and fully developed style complain about this-- but I think such things are to be expected from debut efforts, where a band is still 'finding itself' musically, so to speak. The same is true with sound quality, which on this disk is only OK in comparison with later efforts that have much higher production quality-- but again, I think that's just a function of reality. If you're just starting out, struggling to find enough money even to make a record, you're simply *not* going to able to muster the same level of production value that you can later on. Standout tracks on this album include the neo-psychedelic pop tune "Jupiter Rising" and the classic "Radioactive Toy". All in all, this is a worthwhile disk for PT fans who are interested in exploring the band's origins-- and who want to see some of the other possible directions the band might have evolved in (e.g. ambient instrumental, neo-psychedelic pop, etc.) Folks who are expecting this to be exactly like "The Sky Moves Sideways" or "Signify" however, should probably prepare to be disappointed.

...based on some other reviews here.

This album's sound is unique to this band's other works, true, but thats no reason to ignore it. Every band starts somewhere and this is really bold and polished.

This album is very comparable to one of Sky Cries Mary's(a similar band) early albums "Return to the Inner Experience". That album's sound was very different then, but they later evolved into a more progresive psychadellic style. The same could be said here with "On The Sunday of Life".

The songs here are for the most part, more upbeat and sometimes garage grungy. As a whole, this is Porcupine's trippiest, darkest album. This has louder drums and bass, and is filled with echoing and dripping sound effects often. Some vocals here sound very different from the usual Steven Wilson, but work extremely well. Each of the 18 tracks stands out on their own, but they all fit together really well. It's sort of like a "the best of early stuff" album.

If your into psychodellic/progressive rock bands like Sky Cries Mary, Pink Floyd, Pixies, and of course Porcupine Tree, then do your self a favor and get this.

Watch out for track 6. Don't hear it alone.

Porcupine's tree debut "On the sunday of life" remains their most challenging,strange and exciting album up to this day.back in late 80-ties Porcupine Tree was one man's band.Steven Wilson played almost all the instruments (Guitars,Vocals,Bass,Synths) with adittion of few musicians playing drums,guitar and oboe.
the material from this album is a compilation of 3 early demo cassetes that Steven's band recorded during 1988 and 1991.that is why the quality of each tracks is a bit different.

After quiet ambient styled "Music for the head" Porcupine strikes wiht "Jupiter island", catchy and melodic pop song that has a psychedelic spirit in it.i do not know what exactly is the Jupiter island but i think that the lyrics were written during some narcotic trips (as other lyrics too).this great tune is one of the few highly accesible moments on album.psychedelic and difficult instrumentals like "Queen quotes crowley","Space transmition" or "Hymn" are mixed with more typical songs."Linton samuel dawson" is speed up amusing tune (funny vocals),"Nine cats" is closer to pop music than anything other here although the lyrics are strange and quite mysterious."Footprints" and "Swallows dance above the sun" are genius dark and moody pieces.and of course "Radioactive toy" - Porcupine's first big hit and classic track.great guitar solo and great melody.the other outstanding song is "It will rain for 100 years",long epic 10 minutes track.dreamy atmosphere,beautifull oboe part and bass solo hidden inside...
What more can i add.this album is propably my favourite Porcupine tree's work (along with "Stupid dream" and "Sky moves sideways").much more different,shows all the excellent melodies and songs much more psychedelic than anything else.a must have.

On The Sunday Of Life is not an average CD as one might think ...nor is it Porcupine Tree's best. It is a solid collection of songs written from the beginnings of what would eventually be a band. Here we are listening to Steve Wilson's earliest works, some lyrics date back to when he was a teen.

The album kicks off with the quiet, spacey Music for the Head leading into my least favorite track, Jupiter Island, a playful psychedelic number with Syd Barettesque 60s style sound. It works in concept but annoys.

Other vocal tracks are better, And the Swallows Dance Above the Sun is a good prototype for what is to come as is Radioactive Toy.

There are tracks that trade off whimsy for later ideas to be found in Porcupine Tree, Nine Cats as example, along with electronica such as Nostalga Factory.

There are a lot of ideas floating around on The Sunday Of Life which seems a good thing although sometimes it's challenging on fans of later work.

Taken for the quality of music, time of it's release and vision we are afforded of future efforts The Sunday Of Life scores 4 out of 5 as I see it.

This IS the most diverse Porcupine Tree album to date and is not as cohesive as albums to come.