IT LEADS TO THIS

Ever since Steve Wilson put the Porcupine Tree on semi-retirement, its distant cousin The Pineapple Thief has firmly taken control of that particular style and not just because drum maestro Gavin Harrison moved over to fruitier pastures. Within the scope of a few months, main man Bruce Soord has released a solo album and a new chapter in the burglar's catalog, firmly stamping his creative credentials on a progressive rock current that has rarely seen as many summits as in recent years, as 2023 in particular really offered spectacular releases. Bruce is in fine form, arguably one of the better voices in prog, as well as a highly inspired guitarist and composer. The fact that his bandmates have cemented their relationship by sticking together through thick and thin, is quite revelatory and the proof is in the tangy pudding being offered up to fans of brooding, explorative and emotional prog. Eight tracks, a running time of 41 minutes and possibly their best effort yet. The set list seems like a chronological flow, at least in terms of musicality, but also lyrically.

The opening salvo "Put It Right" well, puts it just right, indeed, with a captivating lament with no hackneyed swells of over produced symphonics, quite to the contrary, a very minimalist arrangement where the two powerful stanchions are up front, namely Bruce's pleading voice and sobbing guitar, while Gavin holds down his usual 'less is more' polyrhythmic propellant , while Jon Sykes keeps the low end just right and Steve Kitch adds the needed melancholic ivory colourations.

Well, eventually things come to a point of having to take the leap of fate and cross the "Rubicon", the band boldly vaulting into an athletic maelstrom of frizzled sound, showcasing brazen guitars that pound in unison with strenuous syncopation. The platform is set to emote in muted rage, as if the fear of the unknown can galvanize anyone into anything, when properly motivated.

The title track keeps the rhythmic fricassee cooking on bubbling simmer, the guitar and keyboards infusing with each other, cavorting like long lost lovers, pretty much at the opposite end of the lyrical content which favours disillusionment over harmonious convergence. Life is a constant turmoil but eschewing the silence and express oneself is the only true relief.

"The Frost" is a back-and-forth affair between soft and hard, starting out nice and balmy, trees fluttering in the windswept bay, suddenly bullied by a sonic hurricane blast that freezes the limbs and surely the resolve. The sprightly contrasts are a perfect foil for delving into the frailty of feelings, going from incendiary to glacial, rollickingly expressed by the icy electro keyboards and freezing guitars as well as the incandescent drum performance from Mr. Harrison.

The ultra romantic "All That's Left" bathes in a crushingly beautiful melody, stylishly sung and loaded with a plethora of refined details, a first half drenched in dreamy melancholia, deeply pained, and ultimately, with a forsaken urgency that keeps rising like a thermometer dipping into a spewing volcano. The electric guitars are outright churlish, and the synth slashes cut like a finely honed razor, bleeding out agony profusely, as symbolize by the percussive droplets outro.

Generating even more inner pain, "Now It's Yours" is the longest track, running 6 minutes (if you include one second of silence), building up another sour vortex of sound and ultimate fury, but here the whirlwind takes on cyclonic proportions with a monster second half that detonates with little restraint, booming drum tangents and impetuously shameless guitars pummelling each other into abject submission. The generational passing of the baton of ongoing failure is an eternal human characteristic, it seems. So much improved technology, so little happiness. A futile relay race to hell, that finish line tape will be the end. Amazing track, though.

And what will be left behind, you may ask? "Every Trace of Us" walks the rhythmic gauntlet, with an impish bass shudder and a Peart-ian display from Gavin, as a tired Soord voice suggests a fluid sense of hopeless surrender, bordering on contempt at the immovable finality of progress. What advancement have we realized? Well, it does end suddenly ?

"To Forget" is a haunting weep, a majestic cry in the night that channels a Gilmourian outburst from the dripping guitar that wears emotions on its hand-cuffed sleeve, an overwhelmingly reflective survey of the human condition and the dysfunctional, disconnected, and desensitized standard that permeates our current society.

Easily on par with classic Pineapple Thief albums like "What We Have Sown" (2007), "Your Wilderness" (2016) and 2018's "Dissolution", proving once again that sorrow, agony, and war continue to plague our world and still providing some semblance of artistic integrity by expressing it without reserve.

4.5 never ending arrivals.