IN ABSENTIA

Preceded by the very good reception of "Stupid Dream" and "Lightbulb Sun", it is with their seventh album, "In Absentia", that Porcupine Tree reaches new heights of reputation and raises the figure of Steven Wilson to superlative levels of recognition. A proposal that conserves the atmospheric dalliances and structures detached from the floor, but adds a hardened and raspy sonic content that at times is akin to Prog Metal. The constant contrast of scenarios that flies from tense calm to overflowing, reflects the vertebral concept developed in the album: the diseases of the mind and what they can generate in human beings, and whose disturbed cover art in the best style of Tool's animated videos clearly conveys it.

From the sombre "Blackest Eyes" and its powerful guitars combined with Wilson's acoustic riffs that serve as a backdrop to describe in first person the unbalanced thoughts of a serial killer, "In Absentia" shows the complexity of its subject matter in different passages, such as with Barbieri's sickly synthesizers and the intensity of the guitars in "Gravity Eyelids", or in the unhinged "Wedding Nails" and its dark ending, or the also frenetic "The Creator Has a Mastertape" with Wilson's voice in megaphone mode and the recharged and insistent drums of the recently incorporated Gavin Harrison, describing in a very saturated sound structure the horrible plans of a family father with a double personality.

But the album also interweaves moments of rawness with gentle backwaters used as oxygenating pauses, such as the delicate "Trains" and Wilson's electro-acoustic solo, or the floydian "Lips of Ashes", or the acid and harmonic "The Sound of Muzak" and its critique of the music industry business, to conclude with the beautiful "Collapse the Light into Earth" and the diaphanous piano that gives way to a very successful and emotional orchestration as a melancholic vindication of life in spite of all its ups and downs. An unbeatable ending.

"In Absentia", one of Porcupine Tree's best works, is a demonstration of the maturity that the band had reached by that time and which positioned them as a fundamental reference of the 2000's.

Excellent

4/4.5 stars