IN ABSENTIA

And then they were still PT... Ok it's a cliche, Maitland is gone and we have got another nice drummer, Gavin Harrison nice at long rhythms good at improvvisation (we'll see his work on FOABP five years later)... but what we have here in this work? Well PT comes out from a nice start and from UTD to LBS we got almost good (even excelent) works, so 5 albums and a lot of ideas from mr. Wilson almost... they have made some changes in these 9 years and In Absentia is much different from UTD (to be clear I've start to listen Absentia after UTD, then fuond the others albums, that's why I compare these two), not even Wilson ideas start to be weak or poor and if there isn't the psychedelic music from the previous albums we got a good masterpiece of the thing we call heavy prog. Enough talk about the past what have we got here this time? From the first track almost to Gravity Eyelids we got a perfect mix of nice drums (I like a lot The Sound of Muzak which remember me the way how Bill Bruford play the percussions), vocals (outstanding in Trains and Gravity Eyelids), guitars (Blackest Eyes Trains and Lips of Ashes), after the first part we got a nice-strong-full-of-music piece called Wedding Nails the expression of PT pure as they never made it before, concentrated in six minutes, but after we start to see less music Prodigal start to a more classic way, it's a song nice to sing but don't goes too far away from She Moved On, .3 is like the dark reprise from Wedding Nails with nice improvement on Prodigal's ambience (maybe the better piece of part two). There we go to a more aimless experimentation for Wilson (I hope it's) The Creator Has a Mastertape is strange, not a PT track, not even a new-PT featured piece... just pointless (the worst track of the album and one the weakest song for PT).

How nice is the reprise with Heartattack in a Layby, from the piano intro till the full grow of the music, till we got again a good opening with bass and drums in Strip the Soul (I think Wilson didn't like too much Heartattack in a Layby 'cause it could be better or a bit greater), the dark aspect of Strip the Soul comes out from the same spot of Russia on Ice reworked with an aggressive drums from Harrison, it's in some way interesting maybe for the guitar parts (maybe 2 minutes shorter and it'd be better). Collapse the Light Into Earth is a coda for the album, a perfect one I must say: perfect choice of tunes, perfect voice from Wilson.

4/5 stars, 1/1 for Harrison (the best choice that they could do) and for the 9 years long career of good music. Maybe the best prog album since the 80s and a masterpiece. To listen how many times you want.

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