SIGNIFY

'Signify' is a pleasant though uneven album from the early years of Porcupine Tree. This album is not the heavy sound of 'Deadwing', nor is it concentric on the psychedelic trance of 'The Sky Moves Sideways', but it sits somewhere in between. It does feel experimental and at times sounds like more modern Porcupine Tree on 'Fear of a Blank Planet' or 'The Incident'. Steve Wilson's vocals are always excellent especially when he launches into infectious melodic prog such as on the wonderful 'Sever'.

The album tends to bog down midway through some songs with lengthy instrumental passages that are okay but wear out their welcome on subsequent listens. There are some brilliant tracks here though such as the beautiful melodic 'Waiting Phase One', 'Phase Two' is an instrumental, building with tribal rhythmic drums, spacey atmospherics and some incredible lead guitar. 'Sever' certainly stands out as mentioned, and there are some powerful riffs.

One thing that I am not into is the focus on anti-religious themes that seems to pervade the concept such as on 'Idiot Prayer', 'Intermediate Jesus', just a spacey psych instrumental and brief narrative, and ''Light Mass Prayers'' more droning music that bores me after a while. I must admit I like the flute on 'Idiot Prayer', and the killer lead break at the end, but the narrations are just intrusive and it all feels like filler material. 'Every Home is Wired' is an acoustic dreamscape with really nice vocals before these instrumentals. The album closes with a popular song 'Dark Matter' that I had heard on a live DVD prior to this.

Overall, 'Signify' is the beginning of great things for Porcupine Tree but they were yet to peak and become recognised as giants of modern prog. This album is half psych and half alt rock, but is very inconsistent. 3 stars for the great music but the masterpieces were a few years away.

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