THE HARMONY CODEX

The prog rock and beyond legend Steven Wilson continues to explore new horizons in his music, and in the process befuddle many of his fans, myself included. I have to say that as the singles for this record dropped I became ever more excited and intrigued in ways I haven't been for his solo material since 2013's almost predictable yet amazingly performed The Raven That Refused to Sing. This was in marked contrast to the three solo LPs proceeding The Harmony Codex, where I experienced such disappointment that I didn't even bother to listen to The Future Bites's singles before the project came out as a whole and I was happily surprised by most of the results. The course of the singles pulled listeners in many different directions, an eclectic cornucopia when taken as a whole that teased not only a partial return to Wilson's more capital-P Prog stylings but a sort of fusion of that into his electronic inclinations. The final package replicates these twists over the first half before evolving into a mostly straight sequel to TFB, if markedly improved over said solid predecessor. The result is an excellent album.

It's prudent, if a tinge dispiriting, to divide an analysis of the instrumentation in half. First then is the more conventionally *prog rock* forms that dominated the singles and the first part of THC. These make up most of the truly striking parts of the record even though they are often rooted in some of prog's more typical stylings, as they are rather new to Wilson's palette and he and the dizzying array of backing and guest musicians on deck play them fairly uniquely and always powerfully. Wilson has also given over some of the guitar solos across the record to Niko Tsonev, most notably the plaintive post-Floyd climax to "Rock Bottom". The height of all this is appropriately the monumental "Impossible Tightrope", an almost-instrumental that tests the limits of both Wilson's nature as a musical factotum and the skills of the aforementioned fellow players. By turns floating in either the sea or the sky (in part with the "ambient guitar" of David Kollar) before barreling through frenetic drums (Nate Wood of the band Kneebody), bass (Wilson), keys (Adam Holzman), and guitar (variously Wilson, Tsonev, and Lee Harris's "psychedelic guitar") featuring great solos including some of Theo Travis's most energetic saxophone blasts.

Making up both the very opening and the second half of the album are the new electronic idioms Wilson has come to use, which strike me as overall more mature than those on TFB and successful in his stated desire to move beyond that record and its overt pop direction. While more or less by their nature tending to be somewhat static in their core beats and arpeggios, Wilson and his keyboardist guests like Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto have sought to diversify these soundscapes with industrial upsurges and some excellent guitar solos. There's also the turning point in the opener "Inclination" that shows the power of silence in music and heralds what's almost a new song, and some evolution in the cuts that peak with arguably THC's finest stretch, "Beautiful Scarecrow". Indeed, the project's only sub-par cut is the title track, which abandons all that to float listlessly in an ambient wasteland that is terribly ungripping and ends up feeling hopelessly out of place on the record. While arguably failing somewhat in delivering on Wilson's pledge that every last track would be significantly different from each other, the consistently dour and even unnerving electronic cuts are delicious and avoid the mid-album drop in quality that capsized To The Bone.

On top of all this is the strength of vocals and much of the lyricism on The Harmony Codex. Wilson has challenged himself to not only improve those vocal stylings he has previously used but to try some new ones. The main example of this comes from "Actual Brutal Facts" where he for the first time slowly yet bitterly raps a broadside against the likes of Patrick Bateman businessmen and the kind of megaphone malcontents attacked in Porcupine Tree's "Rats Return", cloaked in sinister effects and with a vile cackling acting as his hype man. All the same he shines in his more usual singing voice, with "Beautiful Scarecrow" and "What Life Brings" as highlights on that end. This is alongside the triumph of "Rock Bottom", which is the long awaited scaffolding upon which Ninet Tayeb has been able to show the full power of her mellifluous voice, which Wilson was able to match in a superb duet. The project also benefits from some of the best music videos associated with Wilson's oeuvre. Interpretive dance defines both "Economies of Scale" and "What Life Brings", with the latter an arresting picture of the shattered lives of a car accident that befits Wilson's lyrics of loss, with the man himself the observer of lost possibility as he directly addresses his audience. "Rock Bottom" is given a direct perspective of our singers, while "Impossible Tightrope" and the title track have arresting visual landscapes, the latter's futuristic yet abandoned London deserving a far better cut.

In summation, The Harmony Codex truly is the best solo work Steven Wilson has put out since The Raven if not Grace For Drowning, a marvelous and forward thinking record that is a solid compromise between his prog rock and various electronic directions. I look forward to the "alternate version" of THC that is the deluxe edition's Harmonic Distortion. My final words I will use to encourage every current and former SW fan to try this LP, which I believe has something for everyone and a superior take on TFB's styles well worth listening to.