DEADWING

I can't understand some reviews of great prog reviewers of this site. What is progressive music after all ? Does it have a consensus definition? Or does it have on the badge that it MUST be like 70's rock ? Does not progressive music, after all, signify music that innovates, exploring new sonorities, new feelings and the people who listens to it to be OPEN minded ?

The fact is that this album has indeed some degree of innovation and offers rock a new breath. I made an experiment and offered this album to three friends of mine who don't like prog at all, and are only satisfyed listening to 3 minute songs. The fact is that they loved the album (one of them didn't even sleep that night listening to it (!). You may say that they loved it because it is commercial. But looking to the duration of songs, you see that there is a 9 minute song, an 8 minute song and a 12 (!) minute song, and, curiously, it was their favourite.

This album was made to be the soundtrack of the homonimous movie (who didn't manage yet to breack through) and comparatively to their last album, IN ABSENTIA, Deadwing is more compact (a true concept album) and it has more instrumental atmosphere parts (perhaps remembering a bit their old UP THE DOWNSTAIR) but mantaining the modern metal influences to their sound. The heavy-riff constructed song "Deadwing" has a great sonic power and is a perfect testimony of Porcupine Tree's music over the past years: it has a catchy backing vocals melody, psycho ambience and quiet atmospheres (from the "trancy hipnotic" back effects to the fantastic and original pshyco guitar solos made by Adrian Belew), excellent execution by all members (again, the excellent and solid work by the drummer Gavin Harrison) and a impecable production. It has some post-rock development, managing to conclude from the complete caos (minute 7:32). Impecable song. "Shallow" fuses classic hard-rock with 90's rock creating something new. "Lazarus" is a nice catchy ballad with a good work of keyboards creating a hypnotic atmosphere, and coexists perfectly with Shallow. "Arriving Somewhere not Here" is another gem, the best of the album, it capturates an ethereal and emotional-captivating feeling in crescendo with an interbadge of cathartic industrial rave. The album continues with the proggy "mellotron scratch" (though actually does not have much mellotron) and the simple but convincent "Open Car" and ends beautifuly with another standout, the atmospheric "The Start of Something Beautiful" and the dreammy dense "cacophony" of "Glass Arm Shattering", a great melancolic song, ending perfectly the album.

The album, in its essency, transmitts a strange form of beauty, a melancolic strange feeling that transports this album to an higher ethereal level. Combining some original elements and having solid songs with cathy mellodies, in the Porcupine Tree's style, this album should touch anyone with some overture to originality. Masterpiece.