STAIRCASE INFINITIES

Staircase Infinities is an EP consisting of leftover tracks that just didn't make it on Up The Downstairs, but, on the 2005 remaster of that album, this EP is the second disc, I've got that remaster, but I will review the two discs seperate. First of all I don't really understand why most of these tracks were not included on the original version of Up The Downstairs, cause most of these tracks are better than several songs of Up The Downstairs.

The album starts with "Cloud Zero", a guitar based instrumental. The song sounds very experimental and trippy, the song gets heavier during the second half of the song, though this doesn't make it sound very different from the first half of the song.

The second song is "The Joke's On You", a song based around acoustic guitar playing, not neccecarily a very special chord pattern, but a nice one it is. The song has a heavier middle part, and ends with a short soundscape of let's say, fourty seconds, a decent song, not very special.

"Navigator" starts out with some powerful drums and organ and in fact, not much is going to be added to it, of course some synths in the background to create a nice ambience and some great guitar playing by Steven Wilson will take the lead somewhere near the half of the song. The song is pretty mellow and is overall a very nice track.

Next is "Rainy Taxi", a song which starts out with very smooth organ sounds, it will go on this way for about two minutes 'till acoustic guitar will join, the song isn't very diverse and does remind me a bit of "Celestial Voices", which is the fourth and final part of Pink Floyd's song "A Saucerful Of Secrets".

The most epic and by far the best track on this EP is the very powerful "Yellow Hedgegrow Dreamscape", that starts out with a powerful bassline, synths and radiosounds. This is the first of three parts the song is made out of, the second one being a guitar solo, a lengthy one, and a very agressive one, pretty good and really fits the song. Next the solo will make room for a powerful distorted riff, that slowly speeds up, after repeating the riff just a few times another great guitar solo comes in, during this solo the riff speeds up more and more, until it reaches it's climax, the song slows down again and synth comes in again to create a very calm ending, absolutely a wonderfull song.

I think this EP, though only lasting thirty minutes, is even better than Up The Downstairs, the songs are more experimental and much more instrument driven. This is really what I like Porcupine Tree for, their experimental soundscapes, it's great.

Edit: after discovering more music and more Porcupine Tree, i don't think this one is worth the four stars I rated it. For that reason, I will change the rating to three stars, which suits the EP much better I think.