STUPID DREAM

The fifth studio album from Porcupine Tree called Stupid Dream is a change in course for the band. The more vers chorus song approach had already started on their previous album Signify which was released three years before Stupid Dream, but on Stupid Dream the change is complete.

The music is slow to mid paced atmospheric prog rock. The songs are generally memorable and nice to listen to. Songs like Even Less and Don't Hate Me stand out a bit for having longer instrumental parts and Tinto Brass for being purely instrumental. All other songs including Even Less and Don´t Hate Me have vocals which means that Stupid Dream doesn´t seem as progressive in sound as Porcupine Tree´s earlier efforts. Steven Wilson´s Blackfield project is not far from the more simple songs on Stupid Dream.

The musicianship is good, but there are not many challenging parts on the album.

The production is great. A typical high quality Steven Wilson sound.

Stupid Dream is the best Porcupine Tree album I have heard so far ( I have started from an end with their first album and continued chronologically) even though Signify and The Sky Moved Sideways was a bit more challenging. I´ll rate Stupid Dream 3 stars because I think it´s a good album, but it´s not excellent. I´m entertained but not excited beyond average. I still have a hard time finding out why people rate Porcupine Tree´s albums as high as they do, because quite frankly I think the five albums I have heard so far are very average prog rock albums. I hope to be positively surprised by some of their later releases.