FEAR OF A BLANK PLANET

I was not expecting to like this release 'Fear of a Blank Planet' by Porcupine Tree, but having read so much about them, I knew I had to get into them somehow, and this seemed like a good entry point; it had an interesting title and the cover seemed to echo the sentiments hinted at in the title

This album is a tad short of a masterpiece. Porcupine Tree have left the past far behind; they have no hint at Yes or Gabriel-like vocals or any of those sought of characteristics that tend to make up most modern prog, at least the neo-prog. This music tries to come up with genuinely interesting and original takes on modern music. It's hard to categories this music, but alternative art-rock wouldn't be a bad start.

The album starts with the title track 'Fear of a blank planet', a thoroughly addictive rocker with a run down of some of the worst trends in modern society. One of the few albums to acknowledge the faults with the modern world. The song 'My ashes' is a brief ballad with a good arrangement, some nice tones on that one. It's followed by 'aneasthetise', this album's 'epic', clocking in at 17 minutes. Now a lot of long prog songs, well when they make them it's kind of "Right, this song has to be at least fifteen minutes becaue we're a 'prog' band you know", but 'aneas...' is totally worth it's 17 minutes. The first six minutes build up the tension, there's the catchy bit with the line about '...empathy from the pills in me...' and then the last five minutes is a wind down. The other great song is 'Sleep Togehter', a very artistic song with a very addictive bass and dramatic string arrangements that gradually build up to a climax of strings, strong beat and a dark aura. This song has a slight Eastern feeling to it.

With 'Fear of a Blank Planet', Porcupine Tree showed me they are a very innovative and artistic band, perfectly capable of originality and capable of creating emotionally affecting music. However, the album isn't varied enough to be truly inspiring and there are so many DEATH-METAL riffs that feel as though they have been inserted in post-production, for the sake of being metal, cause that's 'cool' these days. Also, I felt the band 'Estradadsphere' was more original, so I downgraded the original rating of 4 to a 3, for Porcupine Tree