GRACE FOR DROWNING

Drowning in what? Drowning in the King Crimson back catalogue, it sounds like. The process of adding his skilled hand to the latest round of King Crimson remasters seems to have rubbed off on Steven Wilson, because on this double solo album he seems to reference the driving, heavy sound of their mid-1970s period - plus the gentler symphonic side they showed from the debut up to Islands - more than any of the other golden age of prog touchstones he revisits. Not that this is a retro-prog affair by any means - compositions like Index are pure, 100% 21st Century Wilson, man - but there's more of an overt updating and refreshing of classic 70s prog stylings here than on Wilson's work with Porcupine Tree.

Overall, a double album which most prog fans will enjoy and captures some great moments, but it initially didn't click with me. Eventually, I was able to see where Wilson was coming on through consideration of the longest track on the album - Raider II - which somehow bridges the chaotic intensity of mid-1970s King Crimson with the gentler aspects of the band's first four albums, crossbreeds it with substantially more pastoral prog visions (think the gentlest moments of Trespass-era Genesis or the Italian prog crowd) and then brings it together in an astonishingly sinister blend.

Now that I've reassessed, I would say that Grace For Drowning demand attention as much as any solo Porcupine Tree release. Wilson's skill as a multi-instrumentalist is particularly noteworthy, and with guest spots from everyone from Jordan Rudess of Dream Theater, Theo Travis (whose sax and flute work puts me in mind of the role of both instruments in the earliest Crimson albums), a good chunk of the latter-day King Crimson (here's Levin, here's Mastelotto, here's Gunn), and more besides - there's even Steve Hackett on guitar at one point, and Dave Stewart of Egg, Hatfield & the North, and National Health helps out with the string arrangements. On one album, Wilson manages to assemble a true galaxy of prog heroes from the earliest days of the genre to the modern day - and it's a tribute to his own skills that it is unmistakably his musical vision which they are united behind here.