HAND. CANNOT. ERASE.

Steven Wilson would probably be flattered by comparisons to Marillion - he was, in fact, an attendee at one of their first ever live shows - so let's go for it: Hand. Cannot. Erase. is to his solo discography what Brave is to Marillion's. (In fact, I swear I can hear some of the sinister samples from Brave buried deep in the ominous opening track of this album, First Regret.)

In a conceptual sense, you have the parallel where both are very loosely inspired by stories from the news about lost women - Brave was about a young lady found standing on a bridge refusing to speak to emergency services, Wilson's album is about a woman who was found dead in her flat after nobody realised she was missing for three years. Lyrically, both albums veer away from telling a linear story, instead trying to adopt the perspective of the women in question and offering a voice for their stories, or rather the stories of their fictional equivalents in the context of the album.

Musically, just like Brave found Marillion forming an interesting fusion of their prog inclinations and more modern sounds, Hand. Cannot. Erase. finds Steven Wilson applying his songwriting prowess and style to a different sonic palette from those he'd focused on in his solo career to date. There's a bit more classic rock, a little more The Who in some of the guitar lines, and less of the spacey Porcupine Tree murk which is usual stock in trade; though there's long tracks on here too, Wilson less shy of admitting some poppier influences here and there than he has perhaps been on previous solo albums under his own name.

The end result sits on the borderline between full-fledged prog and art rock, shifting between the two worlds adeptly.