IN ABSENTIA

"PT" is a very prolific band. Almost each time, they achieve good results and this one will be no other. But I would have expected more, actually. Wilson has collaborated with "Opeth" at different levels and you can hear this influence in several songs from this album. The other tendency will be to write more short-formatted pop-rock songs instead of true space-rock ones. As usual some acoustic moments will complete the whole.

There are some tracks truely on the hard side like "Blackest Eyes" which is a very powerful song and the most commercial one here. Also one of my preferred one because of its nice melody. "Wedding Nails", on the contrary has no big deal to offer. Repetitive riff, aggresive but meaningless. Vaguely spacey for a while but more than anything improvised. Noisy and very much dispensible. And "Prodigal" doesn't really reach me. Average at best.

To compensate these harder songs, some mellowish like "Trains" has to do the job. A folk ballad for most of it (except the very end). Not memorable, nor brilliant. Hand clap at the end reminds "Ommadawn" part I (also the closing section). "The Sound Of Muzak" is a more traditional "Porcupine Tree" type of track. Beautiful melody for the chorus, some pleasant background keyboard and lots of off- beat drumming. Good but not great.

"Gravety Eyelids" is a combination of both. Spacey and melancholic for most of it and heavy beat during the last third of it; very much "Opeth" oriented. Just average IMO.

The second very good song on this album is "3". Spacey opening (at last), hypnotic beat, melancholical vocals, emotional keyboards. A great combination really. It brings this album again in the good territory but it is unfortunately directly followed by "The Creator". This sounds very poor : a very noisy one, almost punkish at times and the heavy/funky "Strip The soul" is not my cup of tea either. So, even if there are no real bad song (maybe "The Creator") I can't say that I am submerged by enthusiasm listening to this album.

I am of course not a "PT" maniac, but I can't rate this album over three stars. Two great songs, a bunch of good ones and several average ones. That' s my feeling.