SIGNIFY

After starting off almost as an ambient space project, Steven Wilson pushed PT towards the mainstream with this album, which to me isn't particulary proggy in a technical sense. It's very much in the same vein as what Radiohead were aiming for around the same time with The Bends and OK Computer (more a case of similar inspiration than anyone copying anyone else, I guess)- sort of a neo-Floyd thing with contemporary alternative influences and a touch of space rock. The Church does all this much better, by the way, but I'm one of a few lone voices in the wilderness on that point, I think, so I won't belabour it. Anyway, this is very much a moody, mid-tempo affair with dense production, some pretty keyboard textures and lots of guitar pedal effects in use. The difference between this and PT's classics Lightbulb Sun, Stupid Dream and In Absentia is that Wilson's songwriting hadn't quite developed yet. He strives for melody here, but songs like "Trains" and "Darkest Eyes" were still a few years away, and he sometimes gets lost in the ambiance of the tune, losing the thread a bit. He gets it right on "Waiting Phase One" and a couple of other tracks, but much of this stuff passes by me in the background, almost like ambient music, which isn't a bad thing, but I don't find many of the tunes sticking. As a first step towards the excellent song-based music that PT would later perfect, it's quite good- they just weren't quite there yet.