TIME FLIES

'Time Flies' - Porcupine Tree (Single)

After having given many listens to Porcupine Tree's latest masterpiece 'The Incident,' I can fully appreciate every track and every moment's worth to the fullest. However, with the release of this 'radio edit' single, my first impressions and thoughts for what 'The Incident' might be were a bit bleak. 'Time Flies' (the radio single at least) is very repetitive and sounds far too much like Floyd's 'Dogs' without much original input.

When the full product came along however, 'Time Flies' impressed me. All of the musical elements they edited out of the radio/music video version gave the song a very listenable variety that helped make the song that much more enjoyable. I hold an extra grudge against this edit, as it really shook my faith in what would turn out to be an excellent album.

'Time Flies' is alot better in it's full length, but at least for the interesting video that coincides with this radio edit, this gets two stars.

-"I was born in 67- the year of Sgt Pepper's"- I heard this release before I purchased it's father, THE INCIDENT, so I will commence with this review first and THE INCIDENT at a later time. "Time Flies" here clocks in at a short 5 minutes 25 seconds, as compared to over 11 minutes on the album. Quite a difference. This is basically a "radio edit" I guess. On the album, this is a very fine piece. On this single release, it is still a fine piece, although somewhat "skimpy" which, of course, is to be expected. This version is actually missing many of the pieces that make the album version a "complete" song. I would call this the "water-down" version of "Time Flies". Not bad, actually, but not even close to the uncut song featured on the album. I can only recommend this to real fans and completists- 2 stars. 2 stars not because it is bad, but because it is unnecessary. Get the album.

Porcupine Tree - as seen on TV!

Porcupine Tree's latest studio effort, The Incident, has produced mixed reception, to say the least. The band, who signed with Roadrunner Records around the same time many other prog giants did (Opeth, Dream Theater, etc), showed the signs of a mainstream push from their 2007 album Fear of a Blank Planet. Their latest album, and this particular track, show an obvious anti-progression towards this mainstream outlook on music - an apparent trend in Roadrunner signed bands, as Opeth, Dream Theater, and even Nightwish have shown similar signs of poppiness on their albums as well.

On the album, which overall I did enjoy, this song ("Time Flies") was one of my favorites. However, in a typical Roadrunner fashion, the song has been trimmed of its muscle, given a fresh new haircut, and pushed into the production of a nice slightly psychedelic music video intended for mass viewing by the public. Seems like it's all good, right? Except for the fact that the video runs for a nice 5 minutes. Doesn't seem harmful, right? But wait....

The song is nearly 11 minutes on the album!!

What is with this label? More than half the song has been dutifully cut away to appease the pallet of the indie rock world, which is what this track effectively turns into. The trippy, psychedelic experimentation is gone, the lengthy, Porcupine Tree-esque soloing trimmed away. What's left is an overall nice, but rather pathetic, shell of a once really fantastic song. The lyrics are much the same and a rather nice, but without its great proggy backbone seen on the full length album, this single is like a rotting core of an apple: it's got its bare roots, but lacks the stuff that makes it tasty. 2 stars.

It would be a great single, if there was a problem ...

... the original version of the song is 11 minutes!

Porcupine Tree just cut six minutes of "Time Flies" so she could be accepted on the radio. The problem is that the part is cut exactly the best in music - a long instrumental section that goes back to the album "Animals" by Pink Floyd.

In my view, there are other songs with much more commercial appeal in "The Incident" (" Black Dahlia ", for example).Take the longest songs on the album and turns it into a single - this strategy did not work, I think.

2 stars

It's probably the worst thing Wilson could put onto a single. Being one of the weakest tracks on "The Incident", it seems really strange that this track was chosen to be the only single from the album.

Actually on this single was released a remix of this track. It's half shorter than the album version and includes somewhat different drums, which makes this new mix have slight interest for Steven Wilson/Porcupine Tree fans.

It' s really a weak thing and a very bad representation of Porcupine Tree music. Unrecommended for newcomers in Porcupine Tree fanbase, it may interest only harcore PT fans.

Thus, I can't rate it more that two stars. 4 out of 10 on my 10-points scale.