For a band that never settles into an easy formula, Porcupine Tree still manages to impress with The Incident, an all-encompassing musical adventure and concept album.
It surfaced early on that the follow-up to PT's very successful previous album,
Fear of a Blank Planet would be another concept album and pretty much one long piece of music clocking in at 55 minutes. Steven Wilson, who has a writer's itch for long form, was rightfully satisfied with the quality of Anesthesize, the brilliant highlight of Blank Planet. In progressive rock, the form is not new, dating back at least to the grand daddy of them all, Genesis' Supper's Ready from 1972 and IQ,the Flower Kings or Transatlantic have certainly explored it thoroughly. But Porcupine Tree now gives it its own treatment, with spectacular results.
Before going further into The Incident, the "song", it should be noted that The Incident is actually two CDs, the main one and a second one made from four side tracks. It is an interesting choice: Fear of a Blank Planet had itself generated a companion album,
Nil Recurring, an EP belonging to the same creative cycle and bringing several variations and echos of the main project's themes. And so it is with The Incident's second CD, although we don't have to wait a year or so for its release. The material is clearly less impressive than the main cycle but is pretty good nonetheless.
As for The Incident, it is primarily a high concept collection of songs exploring our reactions to tragedies and hardships, particularly in the context of modern media overload. This is why it is called the "incident", an all-purpose euphemism that is likely to cover unspeakable sorrow for the real actors but allows us, the public, to retain a certain distance, to avoid being reeled into the suffering and drowning in empathetic reaction. Wilson calls this the "Princess Diana effect", the fact that a tragedy affecting a person that cannot possibly have any interaction with most of us is able to trigger an overwhelming emotional response through the prism of media coverage. Meanwhile, Wilson has argued in interviews, we protect ourselves from having to react over and over to tragedies that affect us more directly. Thus The Incident, an exploration of human nature based on "incidents" from Wilson's own experience, probably making it Porcupine Tree's most autobiographical work to date... Light stuff.
It should be said that The Incident is not really one piece of music. It is made of 14 parts, most of which able to stand alone on their own. Furthermore, the transitions between the songs are sometimes almost seamless but not always so. Musically, PT is all over the map, which should not be a problem for afficionados used to Wilson's musical explorations. Historically, PT has often shown a great reverence for Pink Floyd's influence but has also dabbled in the musical territories of Dream Theater, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp or Nine Inch Nails among others. Most influences can be found here, including four instrumental sections. A few songs take some getting used to (still working on "Drawing The Line " for example...) but there is no filler and the whole cycle is fascinating.
The inescapable centerpiece of The Incident, a masterpiece in its own right and enough of a reason to buy the whole album, is the almost 12 mn long "Time Flies". Lyrically, it is the most autobiographical of all the songs in a pretty personal set:
"I was born in '67
The year of "Sgt. Pepper"
And "Are You Experienced"
Into a suburb or heaven
Yet it shoulda been forever
It all seemed to make so much sense
But after a while you realize time flies..."
Musically, the song is a glorious pastiche of Pink Floyd circa
Animals, a fusion of Dogs and Sheep from this album with perhaps a touch of "Stars Die" from Porcupine Tree's own 1995's
Sky Moves Sideways sessions. The homage is not purely musical. The lyrics themselves channel Roger Waters' irony and gloom, even though Wilson's voice does not quite have the same bite, and allude directly to other Floyd songs as in:
You see there's something wrong here
I'm sorry if I'm not clear
Can you stop smoking your cigar?
The Incident is not for everyone. It takes work to absorb, its subject matter is clearly not "fun" and the treatment more experimental than on FOBP. But PT's fans will be awed and and any listener eager for intelligent, grown-up pop both musically and lyrically, will find little fault with it.