SIGNIFY

Signify, Porcupine Tree's fourth album, is one of my personal favorites. I really like "older" PT's leaning towards psychedelic/space rock. I will give a track by track review of this album and give my opinions on each.

Bornlivedie - This is the intro to the album and sets the mood quite nicely. 3/5

Signify - This is a really good instrumental track and it reminds me of later PT instrumentals like "Wedding Nails ( In Absentia) or perhaps "Mother and Child Divided" ( Bonus Track from Deadwing). Really good guitar and keyboard lines on this one. 4/5

The Sleep of No Dreaming - This is very dark track...but also a very nice one, I think the lyrics point to an atheistic viewpoint of death. I really like this track, even though it can be rather depressing...so you have to be in the right mood to listen to it. 3.5/5

Pagan - Another ambient/noise track to introduce the next track "Waiting". 3/5

Waiting Phase One - I really love this track, great guitar playing. It features a very good solo that is played with a slide. The drumming is very, very, good as well. Steven has a very good sense of vocal melody and lyrical writing, and this is very well demonstrated on this track. Definitely check this one out. 5/5

Waiting Phase Two - The second part of Waiting Phase Two, this is a nice instrumental piece that features great ambient sections and good playing from the entire band, but especially the rhythm section. Nice track. 4/5

Sever - This one takes a while to build up, but when it does it's got an amazingly good chorus. I like how the vocals and keyboards are in unison throughout the song, it's a nice touch. The lyrics are also quite good, and definitely contribute to the overall feel of the album. 4/5

Idiot Prayer - This is sort of an electronica-influenced track, with a lot of samples being used. It's a nice jam track and it's pretty awesome. I'm a big fan of improvisation and jamming in general, so I can really appreciate this one. It's really cool....nice to hear the band's growth over the years. 4.5/5

Every Home is Wired - I've always enjoyed the way Steven mixes his albums. It's got some really good production and the effects on the acoustic guitars are nice and they really add to the track. The slide parts played on the guitar during the chorus are very fitting as well. 4/5

Intermediate Jesus - I like the spooky sounding intro to this one. It's very, very ambient and I like the piano that's played throughout the song. Definitely some good bass playing going on here from Colin too. The track does tend to drag on a little bit, so I gave it a little less for that. Still though, a decent track. 3/5

Light Mass Prayers - Another ambient track, but this one is really quite good. A nice haunting track to put before Dark Matter. Cool. 4/5

Dark Matter - This is the gem of the album. One of Porcupine Tree's best tracks, in my opinion. This features very ambient and conservative instrumentation, but the result is incredible. PT is very good at doing a lot with very little. The guitar solos are some of Steven's best, and I believe these solos to be worthy of players like David Gilmour or Alex Lifeson. Fantastic effort by the whole band and a great closing track. 5/5

And that's all, really. It's an all around good album as long as you like a good bit of ambience with your prog.