GRACE FOR DROWNING

There's something about this Swilson solo outing. Where the others are much more facsimiles of older material both his and others, this one is fresher and more subtle about its '70's era influences. Whereas so much of his work is tight, overly perfectionist, and in more recent times rote, "Grace For Drowning" is looser, jazzier, and more eclectic. This is perhaps Steven Wilson's last truly great album, at least outside of Bass Communion.

Let's start about where it all ends up with "Raider II". Yeah, part of this sound hearkens back to pre-"Discipline" Crimson, if wonderfully since most of all it takes off of and pays tribute to "Lizard". It means great things since this kind of music was new for Wilson, and he never did it again. It's also a summation of his career, an epic suite bouncing between this new and sounds building off of Porcupine Tree, I.E.M., and Blackfield. And when I say that he builds his later work off of spare parts from earlier, I'm mainly talking about him disassembling this great success and using the creepy choirs for Storm Corrosion and "The Raven That Refused To Sing", and hollow approximations of the rest for the horrid "Hand. Cannot. Erase.". I guess "Raider II" is just that good, it had to be recorded a dozen times more.

Aside from that cut, and similarly longer and more fusion leaning cuts like the one-two punch of the title track and "Sectarian", there are of course the shorter ones. These fall into two categories; first, there are the macabre cuts that finish the shiny and new half of this record, with "Index" and "Track One" another mindblowing combo. Alongside these are tracks like "Deform To Form A Star" and "Like Dust I Have Cleared From My Eye", longform pop prog cuts that put Blackfield and HCE to complete shame. Altogether, great use was made of the space Wilson allotted himself with a double album.

Where the rote part of Wilson's career begins, his golden age comes to a glorious end. This is a beautiful masterpiece, a lesson to himself in how to handle retro prog, crossover prog, and big darn concepts. If only he had taken his own advice...