THE INCIDENT

It is hard to write about a truly favorite band, when for the first time in your life they let you down with their new album. And whilst this is exactly what happened here, I will try to focus on the positives as well, because although my rating might seem low, they are still Porcupine tree, being miles ahead of so many other contemporary bands. Even with this mediocre album of theirs, which it is.

Ok so first of all, no listener, who read any reviews, will be fooled by the promise of the "55-minute-long song" of the first cd, which it is not. Being the string of various songs it is, cleverly (and at places less cleverly) glued together, it has its ups and downs, but rather downs, certainly being the weaker element of this double cd. Songs like the opening "Blind house" try to bring back Porcupine tree's heavier side (with limited success), whilst "Drawing the line" or "Your unpleasant family" do nothing but answer the question of why the band is currently on a hiatus. This is why. These are average pop-rock ideas struggling to seem Porcupine tree, yet failing to find their place in the band's discography, in the end just showing the sad fact that they are lacking new ideas or that chemistry between them does not work anymore. The same goes for the 12-minute-long "Time flies" also, with an important side note being that the middle part (undoubtedly inspired by Pink Floyd) is one hell of a Porcupine tree riffage. Luckily, it then gives way to songs of the same quality, bringing us the heavier part of the first cd, through a string of four heavier songs, peaking in "Circle of manias", which is one of the best they created in the metal department. And when "I drive the hearse" closes this spiral of songs as well as the cd, for the first time the listener is finally reminded what this band used to sound like. The second cd is then nothing but an EP not fitting the structure of the first cd, yet being by far the strongest part of The incident. "Bonnie the cat" stands out like a rock, being a superheavy song built up around Gavin Harrison's amazing idea of a tricky groove, but Black dahlia also gets the job done (though some might say it is a bit too simple, not expanding on its own ideas enough), let alone the closing song, again reaching back to the roots well enough to satisfy hardcore PT fans.

All in all, Gavin Harrison is still the drummer of his age, Steven Wilson still has some outstanding ideas, but the whole thing just fails to deliver, allowing me to not be mad at them for their hiatus, which is probably what they need right now. Having said that, I can only hope that Wilson's solo break will do him good, letting him return to his roots in the future, if that is what he wants, with something that is much stronger than The Incident. Until then, may they rest in piece.