ON THE SUNDAY OF LIFE...

Porcupine Tree's début album is really a Steven Wilson solo album made up of songs from previous cassette releases and as such the music contained is a bit irregular in style but thankfully not quality. Anyone who has only heard their recent albums would find it hard to believe that the same band released this album. There are several songs on this album which point in the direction PT would later follow.

The album opener is Music for the Head which is a sort spaced out instrumental which leads into Jupiter Island. Which is again a very spaced out song this time with Steven Wilson singing through a vocoder. Not one of my favourites but this is still a very good song .

Third Eye Surfer is another short effects laden instrumental track as is the album's title track (something PT would repeat with Stupid Dream) which leads in to The Nostalgia Factory. A slow and ambient intro leads to a section which sounds similar to later albums, however the vocals are still being sung through the vocoder so the song has a different feel to later PT songs.

Space Transmission is mostly spoken again through a vocoder, which gives the words a very intense sound, Message from a Self Destructing Turnips is another spoken pieces which leads into Radioactive Toy which is easily the best song on the album. Slow and atmospheric with rockier sections this piece points in the direction PT would take in the future and remains a live favourite (the versions on Coma Divine and Rockpalast show this well).

Nine Cats is a very different piece to Radioactive Toy as it starts as an acoustic piece, with keyboards and electric guitars adding to the sound later in the piece. The music in this song is also reminiscent of future PT material.

Hymn is another short instrumental which leads into the slow and almost ambient into to Footprints which with the addition of drums during the chorus becomes a quite powerful piece.

Linton Samuel Dawson is a very up tempo piece about LSD from an outsiders point of view apparently, again the vocals are through a vocoder which makes them sound very high pitched. This song bears little similarity to any of Steven Wilson's projects but I would be interested to head him write more in this style.

And the Swallows Dance Above the Sun is an odd track with an obvious drum machine beat combined with very ambient keyboards and vocals, not the best song on the album but certainly not a bad song.

Queen Quotes Crowley is technically an instrumental but only because the vocals cannot be understood when played normally, the music behind the backwards vocals is very typical of this album in that it's psychedelic and quiet up tempo.

No Luck With Rabbits and Begonia Seduction Sequence are the final short instrumentals of this album and lead in to This Long Silence which again features vocals through a vocoder and the up tempo psychedelia that this albums is full of.

The final song on this album is It Will Rain for a Million Years which opens unsurprisingly with the sound of rain, this is another song which points in the direction PT would later take. It's a good way to end the album.

On the Sunday of Life is a hotchpotch of different ideas and styles but despite that it is still a very strong album.