THE INCIDENT

Porcupine Tree- The Incident (2009) The brand new record from these UK neo-progheads is a bloody awesome album. Why the heck aren't the media falling at the feet of this band? Frontman, guitarist, and principal songwriter Steven Wilson has one of the loveliest male singing voices in rock, and he seems like a great bloke who genuinely loves performing, and listening to, music. And to boot, he consistently delivers recordings of a very high quality. 'The Incident' consists of a two disc set. The first being a narrative song cycle, and the second being a separate collection of shorter tunes.

I applaud the band for not simply attempting to recreate previous album, 2007's fine 'Fear Of A Blank Planet'. In fact, they've taken a completely different direction here. I don't know of any other band which effortlessly crossbreeds psychedelic prog, electronic Krautrock, piano balladry, and dashes of industrial metal. PT excel at all of these genres. The wonderful thing about this new studio record is that it tosses a bone to fans of all these disparate aspects of PT's signature sound, as well as adding something entirely new to the mix.

Like old-fashioned progressive, a la Pink Floyd, Genesis, et cetera? Try out the superb track 'Time Flies', which seems to be inspired a great deal by Floyd's 'Animals' album. Melodic pop ballads? 'I Drive The Hearse' and 'Kneel And Disconnect' are achingly beautiful. Metalheads will soil their trousers when they get a load of the amazing 'Octane Twisted' or 'The Blind House'. Ever since working with critically acclaimed Swedish death metal headbangers Opeth, Wilson appears to have taken on some of their influence. Porcupine Tree and Opeth arguably have taken elements of each other since their musical meeting of minds. The bludgeoning, noticeably heavier sounding, salvo of 'Occam's Razor' and the aforesaid 'The Blind House' instantly brings to mind the recent work of those Swedish titans.

The song cycle itself is definitely the highlight here, although the individual stand alone tracks on Disc 2 are very strong as well. The 55 minute long 'The Incident' runs the gamut from hopeful to nihilistic, from gorgeous to terrifying. The title track has perhaps been taking notes from Radiohead's schoolbook, and is a despondent plea for love, in a detached world. Wilson sounded seriously disillusioned with modern society on 'Fear of A Blank Planet, but if at all possible, he is even more peed off this time. This album could be the misanthropic soundtrack to a 28 Days Later zombie invasion flick. The band are now signed to metal label Roadrunner, which is home to Megadeth, Killswitch Engage, Machine Head, etc. You might think someone from the record company might try to convince PT to drastically change their image and sound to suit a commercial agenda. I don't think the Tree have really compromised anything. They have thankfully been allowed to pursue their own musical path, to create a work that is as challenging, complex, mature, and ultimately rewarding as anything else in their catalogue. A joy to listen to. Highly recommended.