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Steven Wilson - The Overview CD (album) cover

THE OVERVIEW

Steven Wilson

 

Crossover Prog

3.90 | 233 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Flucktrot like
Prog Reviewer
5 stars *In a moment of existential contemplation, this review was written simultaneously with Cosmic Cathedral's Deep Water. In a similar mode to Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow, the general theme here is existential understanding, big and small. Here Steven Wilson is thinking big, with terrifying consequences, and in the moments he thinks small, it's mostly to provide a context to properly consider the banality and unimportance of most of our thoughts and decisions. What we do doesn't really matter, and we need to determine what's important to us without religious or superstitious dogma to guide us, because those are only artifacts of the human tendency toward lazy and comforting thinking. Scientific advancement and understanding, and the determination to maintain a commitment to pursuing it, is the best we can do, even if it matters nothing to the universe itself. The fading red of the red pill observed at the heat death of the universe, so to speak.*

A throwback, 2001: A Space Odyssey-style interstellar journey to the end of the universe with Captain Steven Wilson? Yes.

A well-constructed, epic album culminating with a Cinema Show in space, with perhaps the sickest keyboardist I've ever heard in my life? Hell yes.

Lyrics that perhaps answer the question of what 70s Roger Waters would come up with if he read the 3 Body Problem and had a visceral premonition about the current rise of authoritarianism in the world? Let's freaking go!

Objects Outlive Us. When I first got this album in the mail, I had my family around, knowing it wouldn't be a perfect listening environment, and then made it worse when I played it through my TV soundbar. That is not an optimal way to experience this album, so say the least. Then, the first thing I heard was Steven Wilson's falsetto. I think it's a poor way to open an album, and it's the one thing I'd change about this song. The only other part that doesn't work for me is the heavy break in between the contemplative parts with Andy Partridge's lyrics--it seems a bit forced, and doesn't advance the song for me, which is unusual for anything Steven Wilson does.

Having said all that, this is a great track. When I crank it up in a proper setting, the layers, textures, and sound effects blow my mind. This isn't about virtuoso playing, but instead extending the boundaries of the tone and emotion of the instruments, with a song structure that emotionally progresses from existential dread to wonder (and disgust) of humanity to brief hopefulness (I think of broom boy in Star Wars when I hear the lyrics about the boy with the telescope) to beautiful (and terrifying) nothingness.

The Overview. I would say this baby is perfection: patient, adventurous, groundbreaking, thoughtful, and impactful. I like prog rock in general, but to me this is rare true progressive music.

The bottom line: Is this perfect? Close, but no, as explained above. Is this essential? For me, absolutely. Each listen gets better for me, and I keep finding new things to enjoy, from the writing, the playing, the mixing, and the larger ideas. I don't know about the Buddha of the Modern Age, but this is the Dark Side for my middle age.

Flucktrot | 5/5 |

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