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107 of 115 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A lot to like, maybe not as much to love, September 20, 2009
Another huge PT fan here, I have been counting the days until this album arrived on my doorstep and I like it. I like it a lot. It's everything a fan would ask for, like a kitchen sink chock full of PT. But I can't say that this album grabs me and shakes me and won't let me go like their other albums. I am listening to it nonstop, and some songs are very good--right now I truly love "I Drive the Hearse", "Black Dahlia" and "The Incident".
I don't know if that is because this is not a great PT album, or just that I have become too familiar with their sound. Maybe I need more time with it, not less--but I have the feeling that more time will just uncover more familiarity and that is possibly what is keeping me from raving about it.
ETA: After listening to this album for the past several weeks, I think I understand what the problem is for me. From the first track all the way until "Time Flies", I love this album as much as anything else I have heard by PT. But from "Time Flies" (which I just don't like, I have tried to no avail) up until the start of "I Drive the Hearse", which is the last track on Disc 1, I am gone mentally and emotionally, and nothing can keep me there. Then once "I Drive the Hearse " starts up, I love this album again all the way through the end of Disc 2. That's just me, though--other reviewers here love the songs during the stretch that loses me.
ETA: I need to stop editing this review, but I have to add one more thing, about PT in general. I am over forty, about to be forty five, in fact. I live in a suburb, I have two kids, a husband, a mortgage, a cat and a Subaru. In short, I am as far away from young and cool as you can get--I am not even old and cool yet. And that is fine, but one thing I used to mourn was the fact that I probably would never love a band the way I did the Beatles as a kid, or the Clash in high school, or Nirvana--you know, that electrified connective sense of discovery that you get. At some point for a lot of people, you realize you have crossed over and suddenly there is "the kid's music" and "your music", and while you might truly enjoy "the kid's" music, nothing seems to sound as brain-grabbingly amazing as the music from your youth. Well, I discovered PT about two years ago, and they brought back that kind of rush about music that I missed. They really are that good, deep, and enthralling to listen to.
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72 of 81 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Magnum Opus, September 15, 2009
This review is from: The Incident (Audio CD)
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.
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18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
I like it, September 21, 2009
This review is from: The Incident (Audio CD)
From reading all the five star reviews I'm convinced that if Steve Wilson hung a microphone and recorded air for thirty minutes most fans would call it a masterpiece. This is a good disc but I don't hear anything groundbreaking or different from previous releases. The disc flows well but it doesn't sound like one composition. The tracks that stand out for me are - "Great Expectations", "Time Flies", "Circle of Manias" and "I Drive the Hearse". And what's the deal with "Drawing the Line"? The cheesy (Muse like) chorus destroys what could have been a cool song.
For me, the audio quality is somewhat muddy and nowhere close to the audio perfection of "Stupid Dream" or "In Absentia". The cymbals specifically, don't have the clear shimmer they usually do and the decay cuts out to quick. The kick and snare are perfect.
I'm still not sure about disc two. I like "Flicker" but the rest sounds like filler to me. Overall, this is a good disc and this band is a gem compared to most offerings out there. However, if you're new to PT you may want to start elsewhere.
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