HAND. CANNOT. ERASE.

This will probably be the most reviewed and discussed album on PA this year, so I'll skip the full song by song recap that others have and will take on, and just say that for me this is the best album overall from SW to date. Less "Prog" than his last solo album, but more "Progressive" overall with the way he blends together different types of sounds and genres, both older and modern, into this amazing musical journey. Also the album's lyrics and story arc are his most cohesive since "Fear of A Blank Planet", augmented by SW's creation of a faux online blog from the protagonist at the center of the story (and also found in the gorgeous deluxe book edition). The highlight song for me (among many other great moments) is "Routine", a Kate Bush-inspired song featuring Israeli singer Ninet Tayeb and a boy's choir. It's an emotionally charged "story within the story" piece, depicting a mother struggling to keep it together after her family is mass murdered in a school shooting (the protagonist is obsessed with collecting newspaper clippings of stories about people who just went missing, this mother later becomes one of the "disappeared"). Also lyrically, love how the album ends on an ambiguous note ? does the protagonist re-join society, or did she commit suicide, or herself become one of the mysterious "disappeared"? Heady stuff, could see this album/story being made into to a movie one day, it all works together that well.