INSURGENTES

A pulsing, glowing bath of the sweetest possible melancholy. Sinewy one moment, fragile the next. Haunting.

While you can find a million different assessments of the "Insurgentes" sound across the internet, you will have a difficult time finding information about the lyrical themes of the album. And I love that, because ultimately it allows the listeners to come to their own conclusion. Taking in this aural feast again and again I sense there are underlying concerns about decay, deception, and disillusion. He talks in interviews about the tragedy of the download culture on the art of music, and how ripping a few tracks from an album to create a playlist means that the artist's conceptual work is lost, the marriage of the songs together presented in the gatefold LP or CD to be devoured as a complete work. (Will kids in the future open something like DSotM, hold it in their hands and study it as they listen to the album start to finish?) But beyond any single issue, I believe this music could be about the loss of promise in much more serious matters. Being the same age as SW and recalling the promise of the time we grew up in, this is music that to me laments the lost potential, that rages at the manner in which the last several decades have squandered that promise through the tragic combination of ignorance and greed. That certain something that was present in that neighborhood of my youth, a joy and security between the people living there, that seems only a shadow of what it used to be in the neighborhood I now inhabit-one not much different in locale. While that's an essay for another place this is music that brought those thoughts into my head-this is music that expresses well great beauty, sadness, hope, and rage. The fact that Wilson labored over this album in the very childhood bedroom he grew up in, in his parent's home, makes it all the more poignant to a person like myself who enjoys pondering the connection between the child we were and the man (or woman) we became. I am not claiming Wilson shares my thoughts here of course, I am just saying that this album in particular is an incredibly therapeutic one for such personal soul searching. Right off the bat the work is special on a personal level. This is an album that reminds me of Richard Wright's "Broken China" or a John Frusciante album in terms of emotional style, but it is more successful than those in my opinion.

From a musical perspective it is even better, a work that I believe will hold up over time as well as any Porcupine Tree release. It is such a giant of gorgeous atmospheres, unique arrangements, and sad melodies. I will lay out four simple reasons that "Insurgentes" is a most luscious feast. First you have Wilson's hypnotic, gentle voice and impressionist lyrics. Second, the things they (SW and guests) do with guitars on this album are mind-blowing. In the climax of "Significant Other" (my favorite track) is the most stunning skyward spiral of supernatural musical energy I've ever heard. It is like a scream blasted straight to the heavens and then drops right into a fragile glockspiel to finish-God it's beautiful. It takes you to another place. Not to mention the absolutely conversational playing between minutes 1-2 on "Abandoner" as both the acoustic and electric talk to you, they are notes/sounds that speak, simple as that. Third, the background atmospheres of this album which are like the filtered, heavy light of a film made by some visionary European art-house director: fog, light, dark, sweat, metal, earth, colors, wind, it's all there swirling around you in every track, making the album one long piece of blissfully disorienting collage. Bob Weir once joked about how he told a sound engineer that he wanted the "sound of heavy air." Wilson achieves such sound accomplishments throughout. Last, moving the sound beyond to the next level is aided by delicate use of piano, strings, and even ethereal female voice. My only criticism of Wilson musically is for his choice to bring Harrison into this project as the drummer, regardless of his undeniably giant talent. I think this is an album that cried out for a percussion sound as far from PT as possible. There are a few sections where it sounds ridiculous having that "busy" GH drum sound over the material at hand. But on the whole this is a very successful release that covers many different styles individually and morphs into something even more satiating as a total work. I love it because it does explore sound, it is adventurous, and yet it maintains a sense of melody, never losing itself to pure abstraction. Personal, imaginative, memorable.

"With each release, Wilson added another layer of complexity to his band's sound and style; with Insurgentes, his first proper solo album, Wilson takes everything he's learned with Porcupine Tree and a host of side projects (most similarly Blackfield and Bass Communion) and rather than simply peel the layers back, instead collapses them all onto themselves." [madeloud.com]

This is one of the interesting moments of 2008 for any progger. The sound quality is as good as it gets allowing the full impact of the sonic treasures to reveal themselves after several plays. The artwork inside the book is a little obvious for my tastes but I find the album cover itself perfect on many levels.

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