Steven Wilson - Insurgentes

I listened to it a couple of times already. I like the ideas Wilson put and how it sounds, so there is some great music in it. The second half drags a bit the mood and everything, so that's not quite as good as the rest and it doesn't make the album perfect (btw, can we please not make every prog-rock year's top album a PT or PT-related one? ). 

Haha! Yeah I think the album is really strange! It's not what I was expecting at all. Not sure whether Im blown away or let down by it yet! The drone influence comes through a lot more than I thought it would...

Zeadwing wrote: And I don't think PT are getting too much limelight, I just recently saw a post saying that there's no PT album in PA's top 100!  So don't worry about that.

That's the general top 100, I was mentioning that, when Deadwing and FOTBP were released in 2005 and 2007, they were crowned #1 prog album of that year.

So, if PT release something new in 2009, we can be sure that it will be the best thing prog-rock had to offer in 2009. (...or )

I am (or used to be?) a massive PT and SW fan. From "Signify" ('96) through "Blackfield" ('04) it seemed like the guy literally could do no wrong (and that included his brilliant production work with Opeth and the very cool Cover Version singles). A modern day music genious, no less.

Lionheart wrote: You make some good points - but I think Steven Wilson's greatest strengths are in arrangement and production. He proves it on In Absentia alone. His songwriting is above average, but in the scheme of "prog" in general, I don't think he has done anything that I would consider to be "groundbreaking". *But*, he is excellent at what he does. His ideas are very clear before anything gets put on tape. Definitely one of the best prog artists in the scene, but not on the level of the real groundbreakers from the 70's. Just my 2 cents.

I've got both of the limited edition copies of Insurgentes so that proves I'm not going to have a very impartial opinion as I will buy practically anything SW releases, including the strange Bass Communion EPs that appear every so often as a companion to a regular album.

I've been giving Insurgentes a lot of play time since I got it last week and I get the impression that it's the culmination of everything SW has been doing to date I can hear elements of all his various projects all rolled into one, be it the spacey stuff of early PT, the noise and guitar drones of the recent Bass Communion releases or the great melodies of Blackfield.

Overall I would say that the first half of the album is the strongest however SW did save the best 'til last, the title track which closes the album is in my opinion one of the most beautiful pieces of music SW has recorded.

For me the only downside of the Insurgentes release is that the cover for my vinyl copy is damaged, I'm still waiting for Burning Shed to get back to me about it as there may be a few that suffered similar damage from being stepped on at the factory. Still the CD version is fine so even if I do have to return the vinyl I will still have one copy.

N Ellingworth wrote: I've got both of the limited edition copies of Insurgentes so that proves I'm not going to have a very impartial opinion as I will buy practically anything SW releases, including the strange Bass Communion EPs that appear every so often as a companion to a regular album.

Even Bass Communion v Muslimgauze?

Slartibartfast wrote: N Ellingworth wrote: I've got both of the limited edition copies of Insurgentes so that proves I'm not going to have a very impartial opinion as I will buy practically anything SW releases, including the strange Bass Communion EPs that appear every so often as a companion to a regular album. Even Bass Communion v Muslimgauze?

I've not got that yet but I intend to. I do however own stuff like the Bass Communion/Fear Falls Burning 7" split that was released recently and the Bass Communion/Freiband mini CD that was released as a companion piece to Molotov and Haze.

Oh one final thing I mentioned in my previous post that the book/cover of my vinyl version of Insurgentes was damaged, I received a replacement book/cover today from Burning Shed. 


Edited by N Ellingworth - December 06 2008 at 09:49

And now the album will shoot through the ranks and have 1500 topics...

So why does this month's Classic Rock say that the release of this album has been delayed until March of next year?