Like
Opeth before them, UK proggers Porcupine Tree are the latest in the
league of already well-established bands to join the Roadrunner Records
roster, and they do so with The Incident, an album that, although it’s
bound to get wider exposure than some of their previous releases
(Deadwing cries out from the abyss for a deluxe RR reissue that in all
likelihood won’t happen) and thus sell better, seems less centrally
focused on songwriting and more given to ambient passages and open
spaces in the music.
Frontman, guitarist, singer, songwriter, and engineer Steven Wilson
flirted on Porcupine Tree’s last opus, 2007’s Fear of a Blank Planet,
with the idea of one album-length song, resulting in the 17-minute
centerpiece cut “Anesthetize.” On The Incident, he once again takes up
the challenge, seeing it through to completion across the disc’s 14
separate tracks as one continuous, sometimes meandering, piece of
music. Those who’ve followed Wilson since 2002’s Lava Records
breakthrough album, In Absentia, will be interested to learn the
coalescence that seemed to take place within his songwriting, the
contraction of his methodology that led to such landmark cuts as “Strip
the Soul,” “Shallow,” and “Arriving Somewhere but Not Here,” has once
again begun to spread out, and although songs like “The Yellow Windows
of the Evening Train,” “Degree Zero of Liberty,” and “Occam’s Razor” –
as well as several others – hover around two minutes in length, what
they offer is breathing room between more substantive movements, like
“The Incident” or “The Blind House.” How necessary they are in the
first place is a matter for listeners to decide on their own, but one
might consider them the equivalent experiments to the electronic
dissonance that showed itself on last year’s Wilson solo outing,
Insurgentes. At least he’s trying something new.
Deadwing had “Arriving Somewhere but Not Here,” and Fear of a Blank
Planet had “Anesthetize,” and to the end of an epic centerpiece, The
Incident has “Time Flies,” which gathers itself around an insistent
acoustic (then electric) guitar line and wanders into atmospherics in
the middle, only to come back together in the later moments. What
joined the two midpoints of the two previous albums, however, was that
at some juncture in them, Porcupine Tree got ridiculously, ridiculously
heavy, and while “Time Flies” hints at it, even teases, it seems to
pull back and restrain itself at the last second, resulting in another
section of progressive polyrhythms, a tension left unbroken and
ultimately a less satisfying listening experience. If Wilson was
looking to defy expectations and throw his audience a curve, avoiding
the pattern of “big in the middle” altogether might have been the way
to go.
Although Wilson’s genius as a songwriter and producer is well
established by 2009, it’s always been somewhat disappointing to read
some of Porcupine Tree’s lyrics. Fear of a Blank Planet, based
conceptually on Bret Easton Ellis’ Lunar Park offered several cringe
moments of rudimentary social commentary (MTV = bad, reading and
questioning authority = good), and The Incident – which Wilson has said
came out of reading a newspaper – is no different. “Time Flies,” for
example, centers on the title line as a chorus, leading one to wonder
if the clichй was really all Wilson had to offer lyrically in the song,
and if so, why he bothered in the first place. Closer “I Drive the
Hearse” as well reads like depressed teenage poetry, seeking to offer
wisdom in the mundane and missing the mark. Of course, as Wilson begs
“Give me something new, please” in a high register in “Octane Twisted,”
it’s a line the simplicity of which is a big part of what makes it so
memorable. So, like anything, it’s a tradeoff.
And true enough, that trade-off is nothing new in the world of
Porcupine Tree, but if The Incident is a test for how large a grain of
salt your audience is willing to swallow to get through it, it can’t
possibly be serving the intended purpose of the record. The included
second disc EP with tracks “Flicker,” “Bonnie the Cat,” “Black Dahlia,”
and “Remember Me Lover” feels like parts that just couldn’t be fit into
the larger full-length work, and though there are Wilson cultists who
swear by his every note and three-part harmony (and for good reason),
The Incident feels simultaneously overdone and under-composed. There
are moments of shining brilliance, but like the heavy build-ups,
they’re not capitalized on and the record feels lost in its own
progressiveness. Whether it was rushed or sat on for too long, I don’t
know, but it lacks the immediacy of Wilson’s best work, despite being
melodically and structurally effective.
The bottom line? Not a good place to start. In Absentia is a
suitable launch point for new listeners. If you’re already into the
band, chances are you’re going to buy The Incident regardless of what
the reviews say, so dig it as you will. Review by JJ Koczan
Disc 1:
01. Occam's Razor [1:55]
02. The Blind House [5:47]
03. Great Expectations [1:26]
04. Kneel and Disconnect [2:03]
05. Drawing the Line [4:43]
06. The Incident [5:20]
07. Your Unpleasant Family [1:48]
08. The Yellow Windows of the Evening Train [2:00]
09. Time Flies [11:40]
10. Degree Zero of Liberty [1:45]
11. Octane Twisted [5:03]
12. The Séance [2:39]
13. Circe of Manias [2:18]
14. I Drive the Hearse [6:41]
Disc 2:
01. Flicker [20:38]
02. Bonnie the Cat [5:46]
03. Black Dahlia [3:41]
04. Remember Me Lover [7:29]
