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THE OVERVIEWSteven WilsonCrossover Prog3.72 | 76 ratings |
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Warthur
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Prog Reviewer |
Steven Wilson's latest solo album was much heralded as a return to prog sensibilities in his solo work, and it kind of is and kind of isn't. It consists of two side-long tracks with different subsections, but anyone expecting something high on proggy complexity and a retro sound should remember that Steven Wilson was the original Marillion fan, and Misplaced Childhood had exactly the same structure but also included a bona fide pop hit in that structure.I don't think there's a Kayleigh here, though - but nor is there a Close To the Edge. Instead, The Overview is a decidedly different animal, weaving its way through ambient textures, propulsive post-rock soundscapes, flashes of the sort of indie-rock-with-prog-inflections style that Porcupine Tree delved into on Stupid Dream and Lightbulb Sun, easy listening jazz, and more besides. Wilson doing this project under his own name perhaps makes sense because it really doesn't quite fit into any of his band projects, though there's aspects of many of them here, from dream pop vocals and trip-hop beats worthy of No-Man to New Prog moments that could have come off a late 1990s Porcupine Tree album to the sort of ambient textures that Bass Communion may have touched on, and so on and so forth. Where it doesn't particularly touch on is the heavier, crunchier sound of Porcupine Tree's more metal-oriented phase - the In Absentia era and its followups - or any of the aspects of that sound that Wilson has drawn on elsewhere in his solo career; there isn't something like Raider II from Grace For Drowning on here. On the other hand, it can hardly be accused of being a left turn into synthpop either. Ultimately, if there's one lesson that Wilson has taught us with these solo albums, it's that he's going to do what he likes with such releases and not be bound by past precedent or the expectations a band project might carry with it. But for my money, he's put out another top-tier effort.
Warthur |
5/5 |
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