FEAR OF A BLANK PLANET

I think that "Deadwing" is a masterpice, and it was really difficult to be surpased by another Porcupine Tree album... But I don't know how, Steve Wilson and his fellows managed to make the best album in the band's career!

The style of "Fear of a Blank Planet" is not very different from "Deadwing"... It's maybe even more cohesionated, proggier, and it has the perfect balance between the strong guitars of the last band's period and the symphonic and classic prog elements. Anesthetize is the perfect example... And the best song they have ever made!

I had the luck of seeing Porcupine Tree playing this album live in its integrity in Madrid, the last October... They played it from beginning to end, not missing a single note. And then I realised again how wonderful this album really is. It has no flaws, not a single weak moment, and it flows wonderfully from the first to the last second... My Ashes and Sentimental are great mellow prog songs, following the path of Trains from "In Absentia", but adding an even more melancholic and devastating feeling. The tittle track is similar to the song Deadwing in style in melody, but even better. Way out of Here is another little classic in this album, with a great vocal work and a lot of intensity... Sleep Together, with its hypnotic bass line closes the album in the right way... While Antestetize is the best Porcupine Tree song I've heard!

The concept of the album is also really interesting... Here Steve Wilson give his opinion about today's young people, about the drug abuse they make every day, the personal problem they have to adapt themselves to this world, and even their way to love and feeling the others. Every song of the album develope this concept with the marvellous Wilson's lyrics, with a great sense of melancholy, desperation and world's disconnection. I think I will never be tired of hearing this incredible lyrics accompanied by even more incredible music.

Best tracks: every song of the album is a classic, both lyrically and musically.

Conclusion: "Fear of a Blank Planet" is the best Porcupine Tree album I've heard... Here we can hear the band in top form, in the highest peak. The sound is perfect, every song is a classic, the musicians are masters (Gavin Harrison is god), and the band finally reached the perfect balance between the hard guitars and the acoustic/dreamy passages, almost reached in the outstanding "Deadwing"... So Steve Wilson and the rest of the band will have to do a very very hard job with "The Incident" to surpase "Fear of a Blank Planet", because it's one of the best prog albums of this decade.

My rating: *****