THE HARMONY CODEX

As a big fan of old Porcupine Tree space rock albums, The Harmony Codex is a very pleasant surprise to me. While the album is a deeper approach with the sound started with The Future Bites, I've found myself reminding Steven's earliest works, with the use of lots of synths, electronic beats and instrumental passages. Solos are abundant, sometimes it's just a very distorted guitar, sometimes a floydian-esque lead guitar and definitely lots of keyboards (rhodes, synth leads, etc).

The album also has a much more introspective and comtemplative focus, giving me a similar sound approach of The Sky Moves Sideways, as well as the mostly instrumental Impossible Tightrope. (Some cool "pink floyd live at pompeii" guitar effects). Actual Brutal Facts remids me of the earliest "On the Sunday of life" moments and the opener "Inclination" and the title track of "Up the Downstairs".

Fantastic album and one of SW best solo efforts, behind only Hand Cannot Erase or Grace for Drowning. Great to see that his Space Rock roots are as good as ever.