THE INCIDENT

Since the new dawn of modern progressive rock, the most experimental bands have a tendency to join the dark side and trow their life work to garbage.

I've been waiting for this album and... oh man... what a disappointment!

When listening to CD1, I have the feeling that it was made by another band. The essence of PT is not there. It's a sterile environment where only good sound quality and randomness reigns. The 55min epic feels like several songs found in Steven's closet, sometimes not making sense and emotionally not even close to the previous works. The trademark coherence of PT is lost in this work. I can find the language of many other bands but it's a little hard to find PT's essence in the end: Katatonia, Meshuggah, Opeth, Nine Inch Nails, Tool, some Trip-Hop references and many other styles coming before "the sound of PT". I will not even comment the strange tribute to Pink Floyd's "Animals".

When listening to CD2, it's almost a different story: the band is talking to the older fans and almost in a farewell way, they are showing us four musics slowly turning into the new sound, like a invitation to join the "new sound". "Up The Downstairs", "The Sky Moves Sideways" and a little of "Staircase Infinities" are the flags waved to trick us to listen the second CD several times but in the end... nothing original!

Am I getting old...?

The whole "thing" is glued in the style of "Signify": as something fresh, spacey and eclectic, but this one doesn't even comes close to the mature message from "1997". The "2009" language is lost in the need to present the band to the new fans and the pressure from the "business" is shaping PT's soul into a non-creative product. The effort to turn this album into a Metal reference transformed the beauty into the beast. I'm afraid that Steven Wilson surrendered to the music business, and offered Porcupine Tree's head in a silver plate to Road Runner. I can only predict that the next work of PT must be a "Live in Someplace" and the story repeats once again. (a la Dream Theater's "Train of Thought" or Opeth's Ghost Reveries).

All this new recipes are the marketing waving flags to new young generations and ironically or not... "one of the wonders of the world is going down..." and we can't do anything about it! I'm sorry to be such a pessimist but... PT doesn't stand a chance against big labels like Road Runner.

I'm ready to initiate the grieving process and bead farewell to one of the greatest and most creative musical and visual projects of this times.

Only a glimpse of sanity will reverse the new path initiated by the band: the "stupid dream" of being rockstars!

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