FUTILE

In all honesty, I do not find In Absentia, one of Porcupine Tree's most celebrated albums, to be progressive rock. It is, however, an excellent album of mostly heavy pop songs, most of which appeal to me. This EP contains a few tracks that did not make the album (but probably should have), as well as some bonus goodies. What I don't really understand is why there are three different versions of this downloadable EP. Sometimes I question the judgment of whoever decides what tracks go on the main album and which ones get relegated to bonus material or a separate EP (some of the material here would be have been much better suited for the main album than say, "Wedding Nails" or ".3"). The "Strip the Soul" edit is decent abridged version of the track from In Absentia. "Orchida" is a nasty spider of an instrumental, at once jumpy and menacing, and it manages to simultaneously highlight the guitar and the drums throughout. "Futile" retains the edge, but involves acoustic guitar and Steven Wilson's lazy singing during the verse, while straddling the fence of metal with heavy guitar and even distorted vocals. "Drown With Me" is brilliant. It possesses that acoustic strumming vibe featured on "Trains," but keeps things upbeat with a clean electric guitar filling out the sound and a fulfilling vocal melody. The live version of "Hatesong" is excellent, and features some great guitar jamming, but the rendition of "Blackest Eyes" is a bit hollow sounding, and due to the nature of the overlapping lyrics, words in the refrain get cut off (the proper use of background singers could have eliminated this issue). It's tempting to think that, because the two bands were touring together, Opeth rubbed off on Porcupine Tree and vice versa (making the former softer and the latter heavier, since Damnation came out about the same time as In Absentia)- that makes sense I suppose. At the time of this writing, I've only heard Opeth on Internet radio, and mostly I've enjoyed what I've heard. Everyone keeps telling me to pick up Damnation, and I still mean to, but now it is high priority after hearing "Death Whispered a Lullaby," because quite frankly, this song overshadows pretty much everything on this Porcupine Tree release (of course, Wilson did co-write the song). Finally, "Chloroform" is a subdued piece with gentle percussion and a laidback riff on fretless bass.