Deadwing

OK, I just couldn’t wait. I saw Porcupine Tree’s new album, Deadwing, available for download and I snagged it. I swear I will buy it when it is released but I just couldn’t pass up a sneak-peak.

My very first impression was that it was bleak just like In Absentia and, like that album, had a song or two that hit me immediately but it would take repeated listenings to appreciate the work as a whole. Having heard it a few times, I can say that I like it very much. I can also say that I’m a bit disappointed with it. Not in way that would prevent me from listening to the album constantly or from enjoying it but rather I’m disappointed that it’s not different enough from their earlier work. But perhaps it is a case of having unreasonable expectations. Lightbulb Sun built on Stupid Dream but was not a great departure from it like Stupid Dream was from Signify. Unlike some PT fans, I rather like Steve Wilson’s appropriation of heavy metal which replaced the more Floydian meanderings of the early PT albums. It’s just that I’ve become accustomed to Wilson taking bits of this and that and throwing them together so as to come up with something new. The first 3 PT albums were very much like mid-70s Pink Floyd. Then Signify came along which threw minimalism and electronica into the mix. Stupid Dream and Lightbulb Sun are like peas in a pod but they collectively brought new things to PT’s sound - heavier guitar, sax, strings. Wilson even brought in banjo, a blatantly odd instrument for a progressive rock album. The song, “Last Chance to Evacuate Planet Earth Before It Is Recycled”, is just great. The first part has the banjo and the vocals while the second is a more familiar PT bit of psychedelia. It’s that kind of juxtaposition that lent the music an air of freshness and made it exciting. Plus Wilson started doing harmony vocals. While not the most talented singer ever, he does have a good voice and the harmonies were, in my opinion, great. In Absentia brought in even heavier guitars. Wilson really detuned that E-string but this shouldn’t be surprising since he had produced an album by the Swedish death metal band, Opeth. IA isn’t death metal – Wilson just added another hoolie to his palette. There were still bits of psychedelia, keyboards, and acoustic bits but the emphasis was definitely on slashing chords.

Perhaps the biggest difference here is the number of shorter, “poppier” tracks. While there’s little that would be considered typical Top 40 fare, there are a few songs that are short and very direct. I’m sure that some long-time fans are gonna jump on the shorter tracks and cry “sell out!” but I think that would be unfair. “Shallow” has a riff that is vaguely Load-era Metallica but has some nice piano in the slower parts in addition to organ beneath Wilson’s riffing. “Lazarus” is, dare I say, a very beautiful, melodic song. No heavy chords and lots of wafting piano. It’s easy to see it as a continuation of “Stranger by the Minute” and “The Rest Will Flow”. What these songs lack are the usual twists and turns and the little touches of color that we’ve come to expect. Most of the elements from the past few albums are present on Deadwing but nothing really new seems to have been added. Like IA heavy guitar is prominent. Curiously enough, amidst all the guitar, oddly enough, keyboards are more prominent than they were on IA, which I don’t mind one bit. Things here just sound more straightforward than they have on past PT albums – there’s no real leaps into unknown territory. I miss the curveballs like the Middle Eastern drum loop from “Four Chords That Made a Million” or the sax on “Tinto Brass”. I thought “Gravity Eyelids” from IA was a great example of how Wilson took the old and mixed it with the new. Take the droning choir sound of the Mellotron normally associated with 1970s progressive rock and put a modern drum machine behind it. Then add some heavy guitar riffing. It all made for a great, moody song.

I suppose the more I listen to it, the more things I’ll hear in it. There are a couple things that may have had a bearing on the music: 1) the songs are based on a film script that Wilson co-wrote. Ergo some of the elements may be quite appropriate for the storyline. And 2) this is the second album for a major record label, Lava Records, a subsidiary of Atlantic. From what I recall, it was a 2-album deal so there may have been some pressure from an A&R guy and/or from the band themselves to create an album that would have more of a chance at commercial success. Personally, I’m disinclined to believe that #2 was much of a factor. While I certainly don’t know, I don’t think Deadwing is a particularly “commercial” album. It is, perhaps, more “commercial” than their previous albums, there’s nothing here for which you can’t find antecedents in their catalogue. It’s easy to see the songs here as extensions or rehashes of previous ones.

I will mention that I also snagged the non-LP(?!) tracks from the “Lazarus” single, “So Called Friend” and “Half Light”. The former is based around a heavy guitar riff while the latter is a typical slow burning bit of PT psychedelia. I should also note that Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth and Adrian Belew of King Crimson guest on the album. I’m not familiar enough with Akerfeldt and Opeth to be able to pick put his playing but I assume he’s got his E-string in there somewhere. Belew, on the other hand, should be fairly obvious but I admit that I have no idea on what song or songs he plays. There no evidence of the Twang Bar King nor of elephantosity to be found.

I guess that, at the end of the day, what matters is that Deadwing is a very good album – one that I like more each time I listen to it. I have favorite albums that I didn’t care for much initially and only became favorites years after I first heard them. My taste in music is constantly evolving so all I have now is a snapshot in time. We’ll see how Deadwing fares in the months and years to come.