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Porcupine Tree - In Absentia CD (album) cover

IN ABSENTIA

Porcupine Tree

 

Heavy Prog

4.26 | 2772 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Dim
Prog Reviewer
3 stars The great leap forward for the former ambient space rock band. Filled with metal, guitar solo's, spacy songs, beautiful ballads, and political messages. The only thing preventing me from giving this album a masterpiece rating, is it's lack of a phenominal song. Every song is quite superb, maybe except the creator has a mastertape, this album along with foabp, is the only PT album from Stupid dream plus, that is able to balance out the metal edge and the pshyc music, to where they compliment each other quite nicely. Besides the disapointing lack of a masterpiece/ epic song, the whole album is generally very enjoyable.

I guess I will review every song, for this album intrigued me before I got it, and I wanted to know more about each song the more I learned about this famous album.

Blackest eyes- I can imagine fans of the original porcupine tree cringing with digust after hearing the first minuete of the song. Pretty much a metal headbanger when there is no singing, and a smooth rocker with vocals. A good and exciting opener to me, but a bit to over the top to give it a super high rating. 4/5

Trains- Apparently this is the famous PT closer when in concert. Very beautiful song, with some very pretty acoustics and a phenominal instrumental section. I'm not too keen on the whole love song thing though. 4.5/5

Lips of Ashes- One of my favirote songs, Very harmonious lyrics, with a spacey rythym backround, and an epic guitar solo/ lead line. I wish it had a little more depth to it and more solo time. 4.5/5

Sound of muzac- Another PT landmark, a political message saying that music is going the wrong way, that it will cease to entertain, but just neutrilze you for a while. If you are n avid prog lover than you know this song is true, I believe it, just turn to your mainstream radio station and tell SW he's wrong! Musically, sounds a bit new wavey, good guitar solo, but once again not to complex or chllenging. 4/5

Gravity eylids- Great song, the first song on the album that has a lot of complex structure, and technology really does make this song sound like a pink Floyd song of the future. The song does kind of meander though, it's only seven minuetes long, so I guess it might just be my musicl tastes. 4/5

Wedding nails- A good instrumental, but nothing compared to the old ones, too much metal and not enough structure... once again. Though this song does flow like normal PT songs, a single guitar riff, and everybody else flying around it. But I feel ther is too much guitar, maybe thats why this album is not the greatest, too much guitar, not enough anything else. 3.5/5

Prodigal- Really cool instrumental bridge! Though, I'm not very fond of the pitty party lyrics, the musicianship is great. Sadly, the tree would try and reinact this song on Deadwing, but make those sons just soundlike wannabe classic rock songs. 4/5

3- maybe my favirote, because it reminds me of Sgnify, they're greatest album. It just takes a load off you mind as it flows very effortlessly, but they use a very annoying and distracting bass line throughout the song. (which they do in the creator has a mastertape and strip the soul, which are equally annoying) 4.5/5

The creator has a mastertape- probably my least favirote on the album, too agressive, too dark, too not porcupine tree. Though I do like the use of the voice overs, which he uses in the next albums, where they sound good on those as well. 3.5/5

Heartattack on a laybye- Not sure I understand this song, it reminds me of 3, but a little more pshycodelic, and trippy. Not very many parts that stand out, but it's better than the last song. 4/5

Strip the soul- A fun song, kind of an aggressive song like creator, but sounds more like PT than some wannabe metal song. After some hard lyrics and harder music (including the annoying bassline),an acoustic part come in where SW sings the chorus a coupel of times, while THREE guitar overdubs come in, this album is overly drenched with guitar! Afterwards, a very silent part... then... the most bone crushingly heavey thing I have ever heard! For a non metal band, they can be quite heavy! 4.5/5

Collapse light onto earth- Following the tradition of classic laid back porc tree closers, a very pretty song, that can almost bring tears to my eyes after being punched in the face by that last moment in strip the soul. THE PIANO IS BEAUTIFUL! 4/5

Yuck, bad review, I'll need to fix this! 3 stars

Dim | 3/5 |

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